To Teribus
Cp Gilad Shalit is a member of the Israeli Defence Force which has been waging economic and military war against Gaza for quite some time.And not only in Gaza .The IDF has killed quite a few Palestinians on the West Bank during the course of the ceasefire in Gaza.

It seems to me that the IDF uses its weapons to kill or maim during the course of quite minor disturbances...say while confronting stone throwing Palestinian children and teenagers.

And there are many who remember how Rachel Corrie, a human rights activist, was crushed by an armoured bulldozer while attempting to stop a Palestinian house being demolished.

The IDF has surrounded and enforced a blockade on Gaza for about two years.It has strangled the city of over one million residents [many of whom had fled from the north as refugees from Israeli forces ].
This meant that children in Gaza have become malnourished [put them on a diet said one Israeli leader ],jobs and businesses were destroyed and the whole economy of the city in near collapse.

It also meant that humanitarian and medical aid was severely curtailed.

This form of collective punishment was carried out illegally by the IDF on the orders of its political masters in Tel Aviv and with the quiet approval of Bush and his gang of criminals in Washington.
The IDF enforced this blockade with its warships,airpower and its land forces.

The Israelis broke the ceasefire whenever they saw fit.

I hope Cp Shalit gets out alive soon. But I also want to see those Palestinians prisoners released at the same time .

The longer the IDF stays in Gaza the more likely it is that another one of its troopers is captured.

Let me repeat.Hamas is holding one Israeli soldier.Israel holds many thousands of Palestinians, some without trial, and there are many well founded allegations of torture inside Israeli prisons.
ifor