Word: gaza
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...future. And as much as the Israeli public is clamoring for Shalit's return now, people could turn on the government if it accepts Hamas' terms, especially when it becomes clear how many dangerous men are back on the streets. (See pictures of Israeli soldiers sweeping into Gaza...
...prisoners Friday in exchange for a videotape. The footage, which was verified by Israeli intelligence officials, shows Israeli Sergeant Gilad Shalit alive and well as recently as two weeks ago, more than 1,000 days after he was captured by the Palestinian militant group Hamas and dragged into the Gaza Strip...
...Even by the standards of the Israeli army, which makes every effort to retrieve its fallen comrades - dead or alive - from the battlefield, Shalit's fate has taken on extraordinary importance. Following his capture along the Israel-Gaza border in June 2006, Israel has launched three major incursions into Gaza, with one of the main goals being the rescue of Shalit. Instead, the offensives killed 18 Israelis and around 1,700 Palestinians - and Shalit remains in enemy hands. Hamas also has not allowed the Red Cross to visit Shalit in violation of the Geneva Conventions, and the last sign that...
...Hamas is ready to cut a deal. Though the group survived Israel's last incursion in January with its military infrastructure intact, it is under increasing pressure from Palestinians to show that its defiance of Israel has been worth the cost of Palestinian lives and the destruction of the Gaza Strip. And ironically, the release of Shalit, if it eventually happens, could increase pressure on Israel to talk seriously about the final status of a Palestinian state, a subject that until now the Netanyahu government has avoided. Dodging final status talks has been easy enough when Hamas was firing rockets...
...cease-fire will likely hold - imperfectly - because the alternatives are worse," says Aaron Miller, a former adviser to six U.S. Secretaries of State on Arab-Israeli affairs and a public-policy fellow at a Washington think tank. "Hamas achieved gains - propaganda; largely the leadership survived; and they still control Gaza. The Israelis got an end to high-trajectory rocket fire into Israel. If either of those objectives are undermined, then things could start up again...