No, no......That can't be true......Israel has accused Hamas of a war crime....Namely attempting to shoot down incoming airliners at Ben Gurion airport!

Israel knows all about Hamas rockets so they must have accurate guidance systems and an aircraft tracking capability!

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“The question is not military, the question is what does Israel want,” said Yaakov Amidror, a retired general who served as Israel’s national security adviser until November. To bring complete quiet to Gaza would require a takeover and occupation of the territory for six months to a year, he said. Israel, which unilaterally withdrew its forces and settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, has little appetite to return.

What is left, military officials say, is to create deterrence. In recent years, Israeli strategists have spoken of the “Dahiya doctrine,” referring to Israel’s flattening of the Dahiya district in Beirut, a Shiite neighborhood that housed the command-and-control headquarters of Hezbollah, during its 34-day war against the Lebanese organization in the summer of 2006. The idea was to inflict such damage that the other side would ask whether confrontation was worthwhile.
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While many Israelis deemed that war a failure, it has restored quiet to Israel’s northern border for the last eight years.

But experts say the Dahiya doctrine does not apply to Gaza. The Hamas command is not concentrated in one area, and the leader of the movement, Khaled Meshal, lives in exile, “in a five-star hotel in Qatar,” as Mr. Amidror put it, where the impact of the destruction is less immediate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/world/middleeast/an-old-playbook-leaves-israel-unready-for-hamass-tunnel-war-.html

It is difficult to overstate the importance of Hamas’s capture Friday of an Israeli officer near the Gaza Strip. All of the group’s tactical achievements over three weeks of war – killing more than 60 troops, launching rockets at Haifa and Jerusalem, disrupting Israel’s international airport – pale in comparison. It was in anticipation of such an event that Hamas rejected five previous ceasefires, holding out for a signal achievement that it could parade before its people as justification for the destruction Israel has loosed upon the territory.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/08/01/oren-kessler-for-hamas-one-kidnapped-soldier-is-a-winning-stroke/

over his head...all he knows how to do is terror bomb..think, Netanyahu, think.

In the short run, hard to say. As we just found out shit happens. I expect Hamas to continue to be intransigent. The fact that they pulled this off, before or after the start of the cease fire as you choose, does not suggest they are anywhere near thinking of giving up. On the other hand, they may be willing to negotiate seriously now, while most likely Israel will want to even the score or get some leverage of their own back, before getting serious. I am sure Bibi does not want to look like he has backed off. And it is probably still the case that they could not agree on much.

You have two sides both playing the crazy guy strategy, though not exactly the same way, which pretty much always leads to a game of atrocity chicken such as we see now. And that goes on until the carnage and damage on both sides mounts high enough for them to reconsider their attitude and get serious about negotiations.

Edit: what is different here is:

1.) Hamas has given a good account of itself in military terms, they can no longer be ignored. Hence the calls for "de-militarization".

2.) Israel is aleady pushing it with the atrocity chicken, and will attract more and more flak as time goes on.

3.) Hamas' leadership seems secure and still in command, and likely to remain so unless Israel makes a much larger commitment of resources, they will not be rooted out easily or cheaply, and they will not give up that leverage willingly.

4.) The cat is out of the bag, any fix to the present dilemma which does not include much improved conditions in Gaza is just buying a bit of time, they will keep digging and making rockets until someone gives them something more productive to do, like jobs and lives to lead.

If Hamas has the soldier as Israel claims, Israel may be brought in further from the border engaging
in a type of combat these young soldiers may not be prepared to do..I don't know.

I also hope we don't hear anything that sounds like a green light from the US to Israel to
continue the terror because of the soldier.

*they will keep digging and making rockets until someone gives them something more productive to do, like jobs and lives to lead.

The sooner someone in power gets that, the better.

In 2005. They were left with jobs and means to grow fruit for trade and the means to do so. They still placed their priority on rockets.

Aside from that, I think we can agree that there's plenty of work to be done building infrastructure in Gaza. Yet when Israel began letting in cement and building supplies they went towards tunnel construction.

http://www.bbc.com/news/28604646

After bombardment gutted his home in central Gaza, Nidal al-Khaldi says he has nothing left to lose and will support the "resistance" against Israel even if it means more vicious fighting.

"This war will continue!" he declares, standing by the ruins of his house in Al-Bureij district during a temporary lull in fighting Friday between Israel and Gaza's militants.

The relative calm does not last long, as shelling resumes just hours into an agreed 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire, and as Israel says militants had probably captured one of its soldiers in "breach" of the truce.

In Al-Bureij, the streets are carpeted with dust and rubble, riddled with shards of metal and twists of electric cable, the desolate heritage of 25 days of devastating and deadly fighting.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/gazaunderattack/despite-the-carnage-gaza-people-say-war-must-go-on/article1-1247270.aspx

As if you need a rocket scientist to tell you how he got there.

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But this is Gaza – and everyone knows the sight and sound of an Israeli air strike. Inured to danger, people in the street nearby hardly pause.

As the weapon zeroes in on its target, drivers go on driving, pedestrians continue walking and a young man calmly halts his donkey cart. At the moment when the explosion takes place, three men nonchalantly cross the road.

This remarkable sequence of images captures the unique atmosphere of Gaza in the teeth of Israel's offensive.

I have covered other wars, but my 12 days witnessing Gaza's agony taught me that Israel's trial of strength with Hamas amounts to a clash of arms like no other.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11006911/The-Israeli-laser-guided-bomb-strikes-Gaza-with-the-speed-and-menace-of-a-dagger.html

AL-BUREIJ, Palestinian Territories: After bombardment gutted his home in central Gaza, Nidal Al-Khaldi says he has nothing left to lose and will support the “resistance” against Israel even if it means more vicious fighting.

“This war will continue!” he declares, standing by the ruins of his house in Al-Bureij district during a temporary lull in fighting Friday between Israel and Gaza’s fighters.

The relative calm does not last long, as shelling resumes just hours into an agreed 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire.

In Al-Bureij, the streets are carpeted with dust and rubble, riddled with shards of metal and twists of electric cable, the desolate heritage of 25 days of devastating and deadly fighting.

http://www.arabnews.com/news/middle-east/610451

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has called on the United Nations to send observers to the Gaza Strip to monitor ceasefire violations, citing the mutual exchange of blame between Israel and Hamas.

"Both sides will of course blame each other when the ceasefire is broken. There should be UN observers in Gaza and they should make efforts to ensure a lasting ceasefire," Davutoglu told a press conference Friday with Iraqi Turkmen Front leader Arshad al-Salihi in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

Earlier in the day, Israel declared the collapse of a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, accusing Hamas operatives of killing two soldiers and capturing another.

"It would not be right to put the blame on one side after an allegation levelled by the other," Davutoglu said.

http://www.aa.com.tr/en/rss/367485--turkey-wants-un-observers-in-gaza-to-monitor-truce