Israel seizes Hamas leaders

GAZA (Reuters) -
Israel arrested one-third of the Palestinian cabinet on Thursday, moving against the Hamas-led government while preparing to expand a military offensive into Gaza to free a soldier abducted by militants.

Hundreds of Palestinian gunmen wielding automatic rifles and anti-tank weapons took up positions waiting for Israeli forces to open a second front in the northern Gaza Strip, a day after tanks and infantry pushed into the south of the territory.

Kill, kill, kill. When will it end?

They are doing everything possible to get him killed. It is obvious that Israel was looking for an opportunity to end the Hamas regime.

:eyes:

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historically when israeli soldiers are abducted (captured...) by the different organizations they are killed. Its known that the longer the soldier is in captivity the less the chances are of his rescue...if he is taken out of gaza..the percentages drop dramatically (as in R. Arad, missing for over 20 yrs).

the main idea of cutting off the roads, electricity etc is to make his movement far more difficult. Furthermore the israeli advantage is at night, when the lights are off, hence the series of military actions.

the longer he is kept in his present place the better the chances the IDF has of finding him....

thats explains the military aspect, as far as arresting the hamas govt, that strikes me as more political...or perhaps explaining to them, that they too are held responsable and they wont be able to explain that its the "hamas military wing" that they have no connection to it.

And there are people in our government who are pushing those tactics in our foreign policy to legitamize Isreal's tactics.

PB

The U.S
Russia
The Sudan
China

and many, many more.

What's the point in calling a country a terrorist state? I don't have any use for it whether it's bush doing the labeling or you.

Seems to me that the language used here is non-objective.

...black people loot" syndrome.

why.

The implications of considering it a military conflict are too difficult to work out without getting a severe headache. We're trying to apply vocabulary and paradigms for armed conflict between nations, or between an occupier nation and occupied nation, to this. And they just don't work.

But the implication is that there is no "objective" (I assume you mean 'unbiased') vocabulary. "Captured" is what soldiers do to other soldiers.

When soldiers from the PLA capture IDF soldiers those soldiers are captured. When IDF soldiers invade Gaza and take civilian prisoners - that is a case of hostage taking and the civilians have been abducted. The biased reporting of events in this region by our media is part of the problem. Objective reporting would use neutral unbiased language to report these events. I agree it is difficult, but we are not even trying.

If they're caught out of uniform in Israel during times of war--and capturing an enemy soldier is indeed an act of war--then they can be executed as spies.

It also means the army, mostly out of uniform, is hiding among the civilian population and using that population as human shields. If somebody in that army is snatched, are they captives and POWs, or are they simply hostages? And how can we tell? After all, captured soldiers have no duty to cooperate. Name, rank, and serial number. Assuming they have ranks and serial numbers. Is there some sort of rulebook saying that women and children, e.g. under the age of 16, cannot be in the military? Or can they?

It rather means that Israel should set up some sort of military tribunal for evaluation combatant status; those out of uniform in Israel should be summarily executed, those in uniform or captured "in the field" held in POW camps until the war is concluded. Surely this is a horrible implication.

But still, your presumption poses some additional questions: What country does the army fight for? And what about all the private militias--are they mercenaries? And aren't military (and even political leaders) legitimate targets during warfare?

Hence the desire for civilian vocabulary, even if it doesn't quite fit. Your suggested terminology doesn't solve the problem, because it assumes that the Palestinians both have and don't have an army; which state of affairs holds at a given time depends on expediency.

ISRAEL last night threatened to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh if Hamas militants did not release a captured Israeli soldier unharmed

The unprecedented warning was delivered to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a letter as Israel debated a deal offered by Hamas to free Corporal Gilad Shalit.

But last night's direct threat to kill Mr Haniyeh, a democratically elected head of state, sharply raised the stakes.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19645805-2703,00.html

is part of a terror organization known as hamas.