Tel-Chai Nation: As Operation Summer Rains begins, another Israeli citizen was kidnapped

The IDF has entered Gaza to search for and free Gilad Shalit, the soldier who was kidnapped by PLO/Hamas terrorists (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin, who's got more coverage here). Be sure also to read this important article by Caroline Glick, in which she explains Israel's rude awakening to reality.

Tragically, Shalit isn't the only one who's been kidnapped: Eliyahu Asheri, an 18-year-old from Itamar, was also kidnapped a short while ago:

The Popular Resistance Committees announced that it is holding its second Israeli kidnapping victim - Eliyahu Asheri, 18, of Itamar - and said it would execute him if the IDF does not quit Gaza.

While the IDF continues its incursion into Gaza to free abducted Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was taken early Sunday morning by a terrorists who tunneled into an Israeli army outpost, Hamas groups say they have kidnapped a second Israeli.

Eliyahu, son to Miriam and Yitro Asheri, is a student at the pre-military yeshiva academy in N'vei Tzuf, in the western Binyamin area. He was last seen at 9 PM Sunday at the French Hill junction in northern Jerusalem, where hundreds of people wait for rides northward every day. An unconfirmed report has it that he was last seen shortly afterwards outside Ofrah.

Eliyahu was to have joined his yeshiva colleagues on a trip to the Golan Heights, but the head of the academy called Monday morning to say that Eliyahu never arrived. After ruling out the possibility that he had gone off on his own, his parents informed the police of his disappearance that afternoon.

Volunteers spread out in northern Jerusalem and in nearby Yesha communities with a photo of Eliyahu, asking passersby if they had seen him. His name for prayers: Eliyahu Pinchas ben Miriam.

The Hamas-linked Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) terrorist group announced late Sunday night that it had kidnapped a "settler." Nothing more was heard from them until Monday afternoon, after reports of Eliyahu's disappearance began to circulate. A PRC spokesman then confirmed that a settler had been kidnapped, but said he would not "give out information for free."

This morning, a PRC spokesman made this announcement: "I declare for the first time that the kidnapped Zionist that Israel is looking for is the same settler we are holding. He is a soldier in a Zionist military college, 18.5 years old, and his name is Eliyahu Pinchas Asheri." The terrorists later released, from Gaza, a video showing a photo of Eliyahu's identity card; the original card is assumed to be in Samaria, with the kidnappers.

The terrorists added that Eliyahu would be executed if Israel does not end its military incursion into Gaza.

Arutz-7 asked a spokesman for the Asheri family if the army was preparing an offensive to seek Eliyahu's release, similar to that being waged in Gaza for the release of the soldier Gilad Shalit. The spokesman, Eliyahu's uncle, said, "Up until a half-hour ago, the army had no guarantee that he was kidnapped. However, now that the PRC has released the video, Israel and the army hold the PRC full responsible for his safety."

And they'd better make sure they put together some action to save him as well.

As president Moshe Katsav has said, we got nothing from retreating.

In a startling departure from his usual resolute non-intervention in the internal governance of Israel, President Moshe Katsav has launched a scathing attack on a series of Israel's recent prime ministers and governments for failing to "get anything in return" for the historic concessions they made in signing the Oslo accords, endorsing the notion of independent Palestinian statehood, and pulling out of the Gaza Strip. Because of this cardinal error, he said, Israel was today further from peace with the Palestinians than it would otherwise likely have been.