Israel Orders Army To 'Do Everything' To Free Corporal

Hopes that they would succeed have faded in the past days as the Palestinian gunmen holding Shalit continue rejecting an Egyptian proposal to release the soldier in exchange for guarantees that Israel would free some of the roughly 8,500 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

The Israeli government also has said publicly it would not agree to a trade.

Israel opened the Karni crossing, the key cargo passage for goods into Gaza, for the first time since Shalit's capture. U.N. aid officials had warned of impending shortages of food, medicine and fuel vital to run generators after Israel knocked out Gaza's only domestic power plant in an airstrike last week.

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 80 truckloads of supplies, mostly food, entered Gaza on Sunday. Israel also opened the Nahal Oz pipeline, the main route for fuel deliveries into Gaza, for much of the day.

The U.N. agency said 940,000 liters of diesel flowed into fuel stations. That is more than twice Gaza's regular daily consumption, although demand is higher now because diesel is being used to run electricity generators, with the power station down.

The Israeli military said it increased power supplies to the strip, where 700,000 people, roughly half the population, had relied on the plant for electricity. Israel provides most of Gaza's power, and rolling blackouts continued throughout the day as the limited available electricity was shared across the strip.

Gasoline and cooking-fuel deliveries Sunday also exceeded regular daily flows. The U.N. agency estimated that another week of similar deliveries would alleviate shortages accumulated since the passage and pipeline were closed after the attack.

"While we regret any harm to the Palestinian population, we are responsible for the peace of the state of Israel and its citizens," Olmert said. "It is out of this responsibility that we will strike at anyone who tries to hurt us. Nobody will be exempt."