By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 2, 2006; A20
GAZA CITY, July 2 -- Israeli military aircraft destroyed the offices here of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, the highest-ranking official in the Hamas-led Palestinian government, before dawn Sunday in the latest phase of a building military effort to force the release of a captured Israeli soldier.
The missile strike set Haniyeh's offices ablaze. No one was inside the building at the time. Israel last week battered the empty offices of Interior Minister Saed Siyam, who controls a Hamas-dominated security force deployed in Gaza's streets.
A second pre-dawn strike less than an hour later hit a post used by the militia in the Jabalya refugee camp north of Gaza City, killing one gunman and wounding at least two others, according to Palestinian hospital officials.
Israel blames the radical Islamic movement for the June 25 attack on an army post just outside the Gaza Strip that killed two soldiers and resulted in the capture of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, now being held by Palestinian gunmen. An Israeli military statement said Haniyeh's office was targeted because Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, is a "terrorist organization" that it holds responsible for Shalit's capture.
The airstrikes followed a day when Egyptian efforts to broker Shalit's safe return appeared near collapse, as Israel rejected a demand that it free hundreds of Palestinians from Israeli jails in exchange for his release.
Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, canceled a planned visit here amid signs the talks he is supervising with the armed Palestinian groups holding Shalit would not result in a deal. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that "though the efforts are still ongoing, we have not reached an acceptable solution."
"We haven't lost hope," said Nabil Aburdeneh, an adviser to Abbas and his chief spokesman. "There is a glimpse of it left."
Israeli officials said the dim assessment could be a negotiating tactic that the Egyptians are using with the military wing of Hamas, which along with two smaller armed groups is holding the 19-year-old soldier. Hamas's political leadership here, led by Haniyeh, has denied involvement in Shalit's capture.
Although the Israeli government makes little distinction between the military and political wings of Hamas, the groups leaders say they are powerless over militia commanders, who last month broke a 15-month informal truce amid Israeli artillery shelling and airstrikes that killed more than a dozen Palestinian civilians.
Israel has also accused Khaled Mashal, Hamas's political leader living in exile in the Syrian capital, Damascus, of ordering the attack that resulted in Shalit's capture. Referring to Mashal and other hard-line leaders, Aburdeneh said, "I think there are hidden efforts underway with the people abroad. The pressure is coming from the people in exile."
The troops and armor that Israel has deployed along Gaza's perimeter since then remained on standby Saturday, although artillery fire and airstrikes on access routes of potential use to Shalit's captors continued.
But Palestinian officials said they believed that Israel, which suspended a planned ground incursion here three days to give diplomacy more time, is waiting only until it locates the soldier to begin a broad military operation.
A tank force remains camped on the mothballed Gaza international airport complex in the southeastern part of the strip -- the first significant presence that Israel has had on the ground here since completing the evacuation of its settlements and military bases last fall.
A small number of Israeli troops crossed less than a quarter-mile inside the Gaza border Saturday near the central city of Khan Younis, looking for tunnels and explosives. Hamas gunmen fired on the soldiers and hit a bulldozer with an anti-tank missile. There were no reports of injuries.
In a statement issued early Saturday, the armed groups holding Shalit demanded that Israel free 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for his release. The Israeli government rejected the offer, reaffirming its own demand that Shalit be returned safely without conditions.
The groups had proposed previously that Israel release the roughly 400 Palestinian women and minors in Israeli jails in exchange for information about Shalit, who was reportedly wounded in the torso during the attack. According to Israel's prison authority, there are slightly more than 8,500 Palestinians in Israeli jails.
"The Jewish enemy should know that its threats and violence, as well as the Egyptians, will not work against the Palestinian resistance," said Abu Mujahed, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the groups holding Shalit. "We will not give anything about this soldier for free, not even information, until the Palestinian women and children are free. And if they come in," he said in reference to the army, "Gaza will be a cemetery for Israeli soldiers."
A senior Hamas figure and Palestinian officials from outside the movement said Shalit's captors have rejected Egyptian proposals that the soldier be released immediately in return for guarantees from Israel that it would set free some Palestinian prisoners in the near future.
Palestinian officials familiar with the talks said Israel has also refused to guarantee future releases, partly because Prime Minister Ehud Olmert intends to discuss the issue of Palestinian prisoners with Abbas during their first formal meeting, which before Shalit's capture had been expected within weeks. Rewarding Hamas by releasing prisoners, Palestinian officials said, would undermine Abbas, a moderate who favors peace talks to resolve the conflict with Israel.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also playing a key role in the talks, Aburdeneh said. As a Muslim country that recognizes the Jewish state, Turkey has influence with the Israeli government.
In a televised interview Saturday, Erdogan called on Israel to release the more than 60 Hamas officials, including eight cabinet members, that it arrested last week as a step toward resolving the standoff over Shalit.