Gilad Shalit

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said it might not be possible to win freedom for a soldier captured by Gaza-based militants more than two years ago. It was the first time an Israeli leader admitted in public that efforts to free Sgt. Gilad Shalit might fail. He was captured in June 2006. She told high school students, "All of us want Gilad to return home, but it is not always possible to bring everyone home."

The parents of an Israeli soldier held by Hamas-allied militants received a letter from him, delivered by representatives of former President Carter. Cpl. Gilad Shalit was captured near the Gaza Strip border almost two years ago. Hamas handed over the letter as part of a promise it gave Carter during a meeting in April. The Carter Center said the letter arrived at its Ramallah office Sunday and was delivered to Shalit's parents, Noam and Aviva. The contents of the letter were not divulged.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas has passed on a letter to captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from his family, his father Noam and a Hamas spokesman said. It was the first letter to reach him from his family, although Shalit has been able to send a trickle of messages home since he was snatched by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid near the Gaza Strip in June 2006. The letter was given to the soldier last month, Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha said. Noam Shalit said the letter was "personal" and did not detail its contents.

The camera zooms in on the face of an actor portraying a captive Israeli soldier as he reads a prepared statement. "My captors are treating me well," says the anxious young man, who is meant to remind viewers of Gilad Shalit, a soldier held by Islamist militants for more than three years. "They are letting me drink and giving me food." A rifle barrel slowly peeks into the picture frame, and he quickly adds, "Kosher food." The camera pans back to reveal that the kidnappers are not Palestinian terrorists, but Orthodox Jewish settlers, who are holding the soldier until the government allows them to continue building homes in the West Bank.

Israeli officials said Wednesday that their forces killed a senior Palestinian commander from an Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist group in the Gaza Strip as he was planning a terrorist attack against Israeli and American targets in Egypt's Sinai peninsula. The militant, identified as Mohammed Jamal Namnam, 25, was a leader of the Army of Islam, a fringe group in Gaza that has claimed responsibility for recent rocket attacks against Israel and a role in the 2006 kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Israel freed the most senior Hamas leader in its prisons Tuesday after prosecutors failed to persuade a military court to prolong his three-year sentence. The release of Aziz Dweik, speaker of the Palestinian Authority parliament, fed speculation that Israel was on the verge of a deal to secure the return of a captured soldier in exchange for hundreds of Hamas prisoners.

GAZA CITY - As tenuous cease-fire talks in Cairo continued, Israel and the Islamist group Hamas pounded one another Monday in the sixth day of clashes that have killed more than 100 Palestinians and three Israelis. Chances for a truce were unclear given the ongoing hostilities, but negotiators for both sides remained in Egypt as the details of what is said to be a multiphase, multiyear cease-fire agreement are hammered out. Israelis officials are seeking assurance from Egypt that Hamas will halt rocket fire into their nation and not be allowed to rebuild the weapon caches that the Israeli military has destroyed in recent days.

The world shared the American people's gratitude for the special forces who rid us of Osama bin Laden, but there was one flagrant exception. "We condemn the assassination of an Arab holy warrior," declared Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas regime in Gaza, who also deplored "the continuing American policy … of shedding Muslim blood. " This is the same Hamas that has launched hundreds of suicide bombers and thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. Hamas terrorists have held Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, in solitary confinement for nearly five years without a single Red Cross visit.

An underground barrier to prevent tunneling by smugglers along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip has been dubbed a "wall of shame" by Arab writers and politicians who charge that Cairo is siding with Israel in isolating the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the seaside enclave. Construction on the 100-foot-deep steel wall began a few weeks ago, but the Egyptian government didn't publicly acknowledge the project until the weekend. Officials defended the effort against accusations that it was an affront to Palestinians by the government of President Hosni Mubarak, which opposes Hamas, the militant group ruling Gaza.

This seaside territory was abuzz with preparations for an elaborate homecoming ceremony, including a 21-gun salute, tearful family reunions and the largest stage ever built in the Gaza Strip in order to hold scores of Palestinian prisoners after their expected release Tuesday in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. But for Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza and negotiated the swap with Israel, the hard part will be sustaining those high public spirits after the stage is dismantled and the decorative banners torn down.