Israeli forces sealed off the administered territories Monday as they carried out a search of unprecedented scale for a border policeman kidnapped Sunday in Israel, apparently by the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement.
Hamas had threatened to execute the policeman Sunday night unless its leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, was released from jail, where he is serving a life sentence for terrorist activities.
But the deadline passed and on Monday, Hamas officials in Amman, Jordan, offered to negotiate a prisoner exchange. Israel has stated it will not negotiate without clear proof that Toledano is alive and well treated.
Palestinians said scores of Arabs in the territories were detained overnight as security forces hunted for the 29-year-old father of two, who was kidnapped early Sunday morning on his way to work in Lod, south of Ben-Gurion Airport.
Yassin, 55, interviewed on Israel Television from prison, urged the kidnappers not to kill their hostage so that their demands could “be negotiated.”
A similar view was expressed by a leader of the Islamic movement in Israel proper. “Negotiations are a legitimate act,” said Sheik Abdullah Nimer Darwish, who offered himself as a mediator. “But killing is not the way.”
The kidnapping took place on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the founding of Hamas by Yassin, a wheelchair-bound firebrand who is paralyzed from the waist down from a soccer injury he received at the age of 14.
He is reported to be in poor health.
Speculation that he might be released soon because of illness has been curbed by the kidnapping and the positioning of such a move as a response to terrorist pressure.
“I don’t want to think what would happen if Sheik Yassin dies in jail,” said his attorney, Abdul Malek Dahamshe. “Reactions can be very harsh.”
Yassin was arrested in 1989 and jailed for life last year in connection with the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers.
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