Monday 26 June 2006, 21:29 Makka Time, 18:29 GMT
The Israeli prime minister on Monday threatened to launch a large-scale military operation in order to free an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian resistance groups in the Gaza Strip.
A 19-year-old soldier, who also holds French nationality, went missing when the Popular Resistance Committees attacked an army post on the Gaza Strip border at dawn on Sunday.
Hamas has come under increased pressure over the incident as Israel masses tanks on the border of the Gaza Strip.
The inner cabinet of Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, gave the Palestinians 48 hours to return Corporal Gilad Shalit.
Olmert said he held Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, responsible for the raid.
One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Israel would work to ensure the fall of the Hamas-led government if Shalit was not released alive.
"We will make sure that the Hamas government ceases to operate if the kidnapped soldier is not returned to us alive," the source said.
Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel's Shin Beth homeland security agency, made the threat in talks with Abbas late on Sunday, the source said.
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i'd feel pretty awsome and loved if i were that captive... and i'd start acting pretty cocky in the compound... pushing people around and so on...
i'm sorry, that's just awsome, all those tanks for one guy.