By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 3, 2006; A15
GAZA CITY, July 2 -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the opening of a key cargo crossing and pipeline into the Gaza Strip on Sunday to allow delivery of medicine, food and fuel here even as he ordered the military to "do everything" toward forcing the release of a captured Israeli soldier.
"When I say everything, I mean everything, whatever is possible, whatever is necessary," Olmert said before a cabinet meeting one week after Palestinian gunmen killed two soldiers and captured a 19-year-old corporal, Gilad Shalit, in an attack on an army post just outside Gaza.
"We and the international community know that Gilad is being held by a bloodthirsty gang of terrorists who are causing us much suffering but who are mainly hurting the Palestinian population, which is bearing the results of this terrorist activity," Olmert said.
In Gaza, Palestinian leaders picked through the ruins of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's office, which was hit in a pre-dawn Israeli airstrike. Israeli officials made clear that the attack was intended to inform Haniyeh and other leaders of the governing Hamas party of what might await them if Shalit were not released.
"They have targeted a symbol for the Palestinian people," Haniyeh said. "We ask the international community and the Arab League to take its responsibilities toward our people and intervene to bring an end to this aggression."
Later, Haniyeh walked through the rubble with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, head of the rival Fatah movement. Abbas, who has been at odds with the Hamas government for months, said, "The world must understand that this is a dirty, criminal act."
Despite the strong words, the day was one of the quietest here since the June 25 attack in which Shalit was seized brought Israeli troops and armor to Gaza's border. The largest of the three armed groups that carried out the raid was the Izzadine al-Qassam brigades, the military wing of Hamas, whose political branch has day-to-day control of the Palestinian government.
There was only sporadic artillery fire Sunday in north Gaza, the region Palestinian gunmen use to launch rockets into southern Israel. The most ominous Israeli military threat, the tanks and troops arrayed along Gaza's eastern edge, remained idle as senior military generals complained to Israeli media that Olmert was showing too much restraint.
Early Sunday evening, Israeli forces fired on three Palestinian gunmen in southern Gaza, killing at least two of them, Israeli military officials said. The Israelis fired from positions they took up last week on Gaza's unused international airport complex, the first significant troop presence inside the strip since Israel evacuated its settlements and bases here last fall. Palestinian hospital officials said they could not confirm the account.
[Early Monday, Israeli bulldozers entered northern Gaza near the town of Beit Hanoun to search for explosives and tunnels, such as those used by Palestinian gunmen to stage the June 25 raid on the army post. Backed by tanks and troops for protection, the bulldozers reached about a quarter-mile inside the Gaza border. The military said the operation was not a major ground incursion.
[The Israeli military said its aircraft also hit a building in Gaza City used by the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Abbas's Fatah movement. There was no immediate word of casualties.]
Olmert canceled a planned ground assault on north Gaza last week in order to give diplomatic efforts, led by Egyptian officials, a chance to win Shalit's release.
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."
