Top Hamas Officials Targeted by Israelis

Israel is definitely ramping up the pressure on Hamas in Gaza, and will soon deal in the same manner with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Top officials in Hamas are paying the price for their attacks on Israel:

A Hamas militant leader who has topped Israel's most-wanted list for a decade was badly wounded and underwent four hours of spinal surgery Wednesday after being wounded in an Israeli airstrike, security officials said.

The top fugitive, Mohammed Deif, could end up paralyzed, Palestinian security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss his condition. Wednesday's blast marked the army's fourth attempt to kill Deif, held responsible for suicide bombings in Israel. In a 2002 missile strike, he lost an eye.

At least 23 Palestinians were killed in Gaza on Wednesday. And an Israeli airstrike early Thursday destroyed the building housing the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Foreign Ministry.

Nine members of one family were killed in Wednesday's airstrike, with an Israeli F-16 warplane dropping a quarter-ton bomb on a home in a crowded Gaza City neighborhood. The strike was by far the deadliest in Israel's 15-day military campaign in Gaza, launched after Hamas-allied militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier.

Israel's air force targeted the two-story house of Nabil Abu Salmiyeh, a Hamas activist and university lecturer, after getting intelligence information that the leaders of Hamas' military wing, responsible for the abduction of the soldier, were meeting there. Palestinian security officials said seven or eight top Hamas officials were present.

The situation in Lebanon promises to get very bad very fast, and unfortunately, today's abduction of Israeli soldiers can be traced directly to past weakness by the Israeli government. Twice in the past Israel has traded hundreds of terrorists for one or two of their own soldiers, and now Hezbollah expects the same treatment for the two Israeli soldiers. Hamas has already demanded 1,000 prisoners for their one hostage, so you can imagine what the bunch in Lebanon will demand.

The leader of Hezbollah has already said that he expects Israel to negotiate for the return of their soldiers based on their past behavior. Here are his own words:

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said he would free the Israeli soldiers only in a prisoner swap, adding that he was open to a package deal that would include the release of the soldier held in Gaza.

"The capture of the two soldiers could provide a solution to the Gaza crisis," he told reporters in Beirut.

You can never show weakness to these guys...ever.