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An Israeli military official today rejected a 24 hour deadline imposed by Palestinian militants holding an Israeli soldier demanding that the Jewish state free Palestinian prisoners.
‘‘We are studying the statement and for the moment are sticking to the official position expressed by the Prime Minister rejecting any negotiations with the kidnappers or giving into any blackmail,’’ the official said.
‘‘If the enemy does not agree to our humanitarian demands… we will regard this case as closed,’’ said Military Communique 3, issued by the armed wing of the governing Hamas movement and two other factions.
‘‘We give the Zionist enemy until 6 a.m., tomorrow, Tuesday, the fourth of July,’’ the statement said.
In previous communiques, the groups demanded that Israel, as a first stage, release Palestinian women and youths in its prisons in exchange for information about Corporal Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by gunmen in a June 25 raid launched from Gaza.
The groups—Hamas’s Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committees and the previously unknown Islamic Army—subsequently called on Israel to free 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Unless their demands were met, the factions said, ‘‘the enemy will bear full responsibility for future consequences.’’
The communique accused Israel, mounting a military offensive in Gaza, of bad faith in an Egyptian mediation effort to end a crisis that has pushed Israeli-Palestinian ties to new lows and piled more international pressure on the Hamas-led government.
Hours before the latest communique, Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers pushed into the northern Gaza Strip in what an Israeli military source described as a ‘‘pin-point operation’’ to locate tunnels and explosives near the border fence.
Israeli military affairs commentators said the force could be preparing the ground for a wider incursion into the area, which has been used by militants as a launching ground for rocket attacks against southern Israel.
Israel sent troops and tanks into the southern Gaza Strip last Wednesday after gunmen seized Shalit, a 19-year-old tank gunner in a raid in which two other soldiers and two of the attackers were killed.
Osama al-Muzaini, a Hamas political leader, said Israel had proposed releasing some prisoners at an unspecified date in return for the soldier’s release. He said the three factions had rejected the offer.
On Monday, Olmert warned leaders of the Hamas-led government that any of them could be attacked if harm came to Shalit. Hamas’ armed wing and other militants have responded by threatening to strike inside Israel.
—Reuters
