Word: palestinians
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...ardor of the Israelis' effort to find Shalit. Olmert, who took office after Ariel Sharon's stroke in January, had little choice but to go into Gaza, given the Israeli public's deep identification with the army, in which most Israeli citizens have served. Lacking any counterpart on the Palestinian side that it trusts, Israel has taken a "shake the trees" approach, putting as much pressure as possible on the government and civilian population in the hopes that someone would turn on Hamas. But it's difficult to see how some Israeli tactics, particularly the strike on the Gaza power...
...kidnap Corporal Gilad Shalit and take him to the Gaza Strip, although Hamas and other Arab officials insist Mashaal was not directly involved. The Israelis believe he ordered the high-stakes hostage taking to scupper attempts by the Hamas-led government to join in unity talks with moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that would implicitly recognize Israel's right to exist...
...Israelis once tried to kill Mashaal and nearly succeeded. In 1997 two Israeli Mossad agents in Amman tried to assassinate Mashaal, who was allegedly running money and supplies to Palestinian militants in the occupied territories, by smearing his neck with poison. Both would-be assassins were caught, and as Mashaal was dying from the lethal toxin, Jordanian authorities made a deal: they would release the captured Mossad agents in exchange for an antidote to save Mashaal's life. The Israelis complied, and the uproar generated by the botched assassination attempt catapulted Mashaal to the top tier of Hamas' leadership, which...
There is no clear evidence that Mashaal was responsible for the soldier's kidnapping. According to Palestinian sources close to Hamas' secretive inner workings, Mashaal had no motive for sabotaging any future peace talks between Prime Minister Haniya and the more moderate President Abbas. To the contrary, says Osama Hamdan, Hamas' chief representative in Lebanon, Mashaal was instrumental in persuading Haniya and other Hamas leaders to accept Abbas' peace proposal, a plan based on a document crafted by Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails that indirectly accepts Israel's right to exist. According to Hamdan, Mashaal "reached a kind of unity...
...Palestinian sources tell TIME it's more likely that Shalit's abduction was planned by a radical Palestinian faction that believes Hamas' leaders were giving away too much to the Israelis. Whatever the case, the Israelis have made it clear that as long as their young soldier is a hostage, Mashaal's life is in danger...