Israeli Warplanes Make Warning Flight Over Syria
Reuters
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 3:06 PM
JERUSALEM, June 28 (Reuters) - Israeli warplanes flew over one of President Bashar al-Assad's palaces on Wednesday to warn Syria against supporting Palestinian militants who abducted an Israeli soldier, the Israeli army said.
Israeli media reports said four planes carried out the overflights at low altitude, early in the morning, and created several sonic booms.
An army spokeswoman said the planes flew over Assad's palace near the city of Latakia, "because the Syrian leadership supports and harbours terrorist leaders, among them Hamas, the kidnappers of the soldier".
Israeli media said Assad was at the palace at the time.
The armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement was among the three factions that took part in the cross-border raid into Israel from Gaza in which the soldier was seized on Sunday, but it has not said it is holding him.
Israeli leaders have accused Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal of being responsible for the kidnapping.
Exiled Hamas leaders say they were not involved in the operation to capture the soldier, but are taking seriously Israeli threats to kill them.
A senior Syrian official told Reuters that two Israeli planes had penetrated Syrian air space and that Syrian air defences forced them to leave. Israeli television said no ground to air missiles were fired at the Israeli aircraft.
"This is a provocative action and it is totally rejected," the Syrian official said.
Syrian political commentator Thabet Salem said in Damascus: "The Israelis are trying to make their problems into a regional one because the capture of the solider and settler is embarrassing for their military establishment."
(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Damascus) Reut18:56 06-28-06
© 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
A 3,000 strong detachment of the Israeli Defense Forces has moved back into the Gaza Strip only months after withdrawal of settlements from the area. Eight Hamas cabinet ministers, in addition to other officials, have been detained in a coordinated action codenamed Operation Summer Rains. The pre-planned operation was launched in immediate response to what Israel said was the kidnap of 19-year-old Israeli tank gunner Cpl. Gilad Shalit on 25 June.
Map of the Gaza Strip.
Three bridges in the Gaza Strip have been bombed for the stated purpose of restricting the movement of the hostage takers and the hostage. 

In other operations a helicopter attack on a power station in Gaza plunged large portions of the Gaza Strip into darkness, leaving somewhere around 700,000 civilians without electricity or water. While Israeli troops and armored vehicles, lead by bulldozers, also moved into Gaza near a disused international airport. 

There were also reports of Israeli warplanes making warning flights over Syria in what has been reported to be a warning "against supporting Palestinian militants."

"Fight your enemies, who came to their deaths. Grab your rifles and resist," said Nizar Rayan in a radio message to Palestinian militants. Despite this exhortation, there were no immediate reports of casualties or conflicts.

"We have no desire to remain in the Gaza Strip," said Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, on  Israel Radio, although he did not give a timetable for the operation. "We want to bring our boy home, that's all."

The Popular Resistance Committees threatened to kill an Israeli soldier, kidnapped in the West Bank. The body of an 18-year-old Israeli settler, Eliyahu Yitzhak Asheri, kidnapped while hitchhiking in the West Bank, was found in the A-Tira neighbourhood of Ramallah today; he was killed by Palestinian militants from the Popular Resistance Committees on Sunday. 

Israel has also detained dozens of Hamas MPs and ministers in a what Israel claims is an unrelated operation. An Israeli official denied the capture as a use for bargaining with the kidnappers saying, "They are not bargaining chips for the return of the soldier - it was simply an operation against a terrorist organisation."