Would Israel invade Gaza over this one soldier?

[Nimrod2005]

I see troops are being moved to the border...

[babylonsister]

1. They're talking like they would. I'd say 'yes'. Give them an inch... nt

[Codeine]

2. Why not?

If I was in the same position I might do the same. Perhaps the Palestinians should release the soldier and save everybody, mostly their own people, a great deal of pain.

[eyl]

3. If the Palestinians don't release him quickly

and the IDF has good intelligence as to his whereabouts, probably.

Right after the start of the intifada, a member of the Border Guards named Madhat Yusuf was wounded at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. The IDF refrained from going in after him, because they didn't want to get to start the firefight again, and the Palestinians promised that they would extract the soldier and hand him over to the Israelis. In practise, they did nothing - and four hours later, Yusuf, who was still outside the Tomb, died of blood loss.

That event was a rather traumatic one to Israelis in general and the IDF in particular - because it violatied one of the IDF's most sacred credos of never leaving a man behind. Besides that, there was the effet of the Hizbullah's kidnapping of three soldiers from northern Israel, as well as an Israeli civilian from Europe. They refused to divulge any details about them or their condition, and much later, we traded 400+ prisoners for three corpses and a drug dealer (personally, I would have made the deal for the bodies and told them to keep Tenenbaum, but whatever)

So Israel isn't likely to start a protracted negotiation for the soldier's release. If we think we have a chance at a miltary operation to rescue him, we won't hold off on the Palestinians' account.