Israel warned the governing Palestinian party Hamas that the "sky will fall on them" if they harm a captured soldier after a deadline passed on Tuesday morning for the Jewish state to accept a prisoner exchange. Interior Minister Roni Bar-On told Israel Radio: "Hamas well understands ... that the sky will fall on them if they harm Gilad Shalit (the captured soldier)."
Speaking at a business event in southern Israel, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert repeated his refusal to negotiate with the captors. "We won't negotiate with terror elements and we won't let anyone believe that kidnapping is a tool to bring Israel to its knees," he said.
He told the audience he has ordered the army to push forward with efforts "to strike terrorists and those who sent them and those who sponsor them," an apparent reference to Syria. "None of them will be immune."
Meanwhile, Hamas sources said Western diplomats, whom they did not name, had told the group that Israel had prepared a 13-man hit list headed by exiled leader Khaled Meshaal and including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar.
In Gaza City, Haniyeh urged the soldier's captors to protect him and expressed hope for a peaceful resolution to the standoff. "The government is exerting efforts with Palestinian, Arab and regional parties to end this case in the appropriate manner," Haniyeh said at the opening of a Cabinet meeting.
According to the AP, he said the government reiterates the need "to continue the political, diplomatic and negotiation efforts and not to close the door and use the language of wisdom and logic to end this."
