IDF enter Gaza in massive show of force, bomb bridges, power station

Israeli military forces entered the southern Gaza Strip today (4.30 GMT) as part of a massive show of force to intimidate and eventually to rescue Gilad Shalit,( who aparently also has French citizenship) the soldier kidnapped by Palestinian groups earlier in the week, the Israel Defense Forces said.

According to MSNBC, IAF planes fired five missiles at the power station located south of Gaza City, plunging more than half of the Strip into darkness. Bridges linking North and South Gaza were also hit and destroyed, "in order to impair the ability of the terrorists to transfer the kidnapped soldier," according to a statement by IDF officials.

Tension grew all day Tuesday, Hamas reached a shaky political deal with President Mahmoud Abbas, but rejected any suggestion the plan meant it recognized Israel or had dropped its vow to destroy it. The Daily Telegraph called this a "historic policy reversal".

Israel dismissed the manifesto, penned by Palestinians in its jails, as "double-speak" aimed at lifting a US -led aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority.

Meanwhile mystery still surrounds Eliyahu Asheri, 18, of the settlement of Itamar, near Nablus, who was reported missing since Sunday, and police had been examining a possible connection between the missing person report and claims by the militants' that they had kidnapped him.

The BBC correspondent's report on BBC 4 "Today" at 6.30 BST was puntuated by the Supersonic blast of overflying jets.