October 28,2008:  Recently, Israel revealed that it had arrested a Hamas operative (Jamal Abu Dueba) along the Gaza-Israel border last month, and found him carrying tranquillizer pills. An investigation, and interrogation, revealed that Dueba was trying to pass himself off as a drug dealer. The plan was to sell the tranquilizers to Israeli soldiers as something else (a recreational drug), and take a drugged Israeli soldier into Gaza via one of the smuggling tunnel. Hamas is keen on kidnapping Israelis at the moment.

Last month, Israel refused to free a 1,500, or even a thousand, Palestinians from jail, in return for the release of an Israeli soldier held (for two years) by Hamas. Israel has offered to release 450 Palestinians (and mostly low level offenders, not the killers and terrorist leaders Hamas wants). Thus negotiations with Hamas are deadlocked, although Hamas knows that it will obtain a substantial ransom (in terms of freed prisoners) for that one Israeli captive.

Meanwhile, the Israelis have been warning their citizens to beware visiting nations with large Moslem populations, because Hezbollah has begun a large scale effort to kill or kidnap Israelis overseas, this being the easiest way to strike at Israel (at least according to Hezbollah thinking.)

Hamas has come up with many schemes to kidnap Israeli soldiers or civilians. Israeli intelligence tries to obtain information on these ploys, and alert soldiers and civilians to adjust their behavior accordingly. So far, Palestinian and Lebanese (who caught and killed two soldiers in 2006) terrorists have been unsuccessful in grabbing additional victims. But they are trying real hard.