1. Yes 2. Yes 3. Yes 4. Hamas must recognize Jewish sovereignty over Israel

Bring Gilad home before agreeing to a cease fire. A cease fire without finishing the job will only bring more rockets in another few months.

if our israeli leaders do not understand that they are occupiers....israel will always be in some kind of war...my fear is that there will come a war that will finish us off....instead of living with peace and prosperity...our leaders are choosing paths of destruction for all sides

Some thoughts on the conditions of a cease fire: 1) First and foremost, Gilad Shalit will be returned alive and healthy in exchange for all of the Hamas terrorists that Israel has taken prisoner in Operation Cast Lead. Neither the Israeli nor the foreign press has reported how many prisoners have been taken prisoner, but there must be quite a few. If Hamas can't return Gilad Shalit alive, then only half of the prisoners should be exchanged in return for his body. 2) Hamas must cease all rocket fire and all other forms of terrorist attacks on Israel. 3) Israel will cease all military attacks on Gaza and all soldiers will leave Gaza. 4) International forces/observers etc. will be placed on the Gaza side of the Philadelphia Route to ensure weapons are not brought into Gaza either above ground or through tunnels. 5) Egypt will be provided with all the necessary technology to detect the digging of tunnels or the existence of tunnels between Gaza and Egypt and destroy such tunnels. 6) The international community must confront Iran and Syria on its role of funding and providing weapons to Hamas (and Hezbollah) and make all necessary efforts to stop their support of terrorist organizations. 7) For every day that Hamas does not fire rockets or commit other terrorist attacks against Israel, Israel will release one Hamas prisoner at midnight the same day. Israel will establish a website in English, Hebrew and Arabic, that shows the photo of each Hamas prisoner along with his name, his crime, the length of his sentence and the amount of time he has spent as a prisoner in the order they are expected to be released. That way each prisoner's family will know feel a responsibility to make sure that Hamas does not attack Israel if they want their son, brother, father or husband to be released

No way, no how should Israel agree to a truce. The last 6 month truce brought rockets with 20-40K range. Will this one bring rockets that reach further East and North. Too much effort has been expanded in destroying the Hamas infrastructure to stop now. Lives have been lost, soldiers have been maimed. It is time for Israel to finish what it started and not leave the job undone. Besides Where is Gilad Shallit? It is more than overdue that he come home ALIVE!!!

That Hamas will break their word the second any truce agreement is signed. They are Islamic terrorists after all. What else can one expect?

While I respect your opinion with all due respect. Israel is on the offensive after three years of rocket bombardments. the Hamas says it is because we are occupiers. My question to them is of what? We pulled out of Gaza, then closed the boarders after a few dozen bombings killed score of Israelis. Only after repeated warnings to Hamas to stop did we take action. We then proceeded to drop leaflets all over Gaza where we were going to bomb. Who else does this? At this point we need to continue and finish the job and reach the objectives we set forth. Anything else would be a compromise that we can not except.

SNS Its unlikley that Hamas will agree to even one of those conditions you propose. Gilad is for sure a no no thats an obvious sign of surrender and they want to save face as best as possible and there is no way Olmert will push them on that one. Even Egypt has rejected any kind of international force and insist that they will continue to have sole responsibility over policing borders just like they have done so well since 2005. Although it hasnt been rejected Egypt has not accepted the idea of any kind of physical barrier being. constructed to stop the smuggling. Nobody is going to be confronting Syria next time anybody speaks with Syria will be the French who have come to see Assad as a diplomat and Obama who wants to push through peace treaties not for the sake of peace but for his reputation as the magical president of legend who can deliver all things to all people. Nobody wants to get into anymore diplomatic conflicts with Iran, Ahmadinijad already has his invite to the White House for unconditional talks. Hamas will demand the imidiate and unconditional release of all prisoners and Israels great leaders will probably accept if its a condition of the Egyptian plan. Our people don't know the first thing about how to negotiate to win. We won the battle and we will loose the war thanks to the lack of skill of our negotiators and politicians desire for a quick end to the fighting now because whatever they say in public they are loosing their nerve especialy Livni & Barak who also have election campaigns to get back to. The way things are playing out right now we are going to end up loosing this just like we lost Lebanon.

Barak's , Livni's and Oldmerde's acceptance of a ceasefire or "truce " with Hamas, amounts to treason against all Israeli Jews. Once the operation is completed i.e. Hamas formally surrenders, there can be a constructive, meaningful truce.

am as cynical as the next man, but isnt it miraculous that with the hundred of missiles fired into Israel, the loss of life (though one is too many) has been minimal. I do beleive Hashem is looking after us, Hamas and the rest of that Nazi rabel must be beside themselves. They do not know the power of our god.

has hamas surrendered? have they even agreed to recognize israel's right to exist? or to renounce violence? after 1701, israel's leaders should be more careful about accepting arab terms for a "ceasefire". and where is gilad shalit? or will hamas continue to demand 1,000 jailed terrorists for his body?

I notice that this is not a surrender to Israel. I hope Egypt learns that to Hamas "Cease Fire" means "you stop firing at us while we continue rocket attacks on you". Does this mean that Hamas will now begin bombarding Egypt?

Khaled Mashaal what a beauty an clean hand you have. It's obvius you've never put them on the ground. The same goes for your clothing.

The solution is not a truce. Truce inherently gives the right to provoke it. Hamas has to accept the existence of Israel and its right to live as Abbas did. Without this condition there will be many wars in the future. hamas need to be dissolved and a secular parties comes in place. Nothing useful come out of hamas except a cry in every Gazan Home. Arabs: Keep religion in Mosques only and be more civilized. Daaaaa

One of the divisions of the Hamas is called the lies division And indeed, the Hamas is using lies as a weapon. As such, Israel has to ignore the moaning of Hamas, and continue its military effort until the last barbarian leaders will be exterminated. The Israeli people deserve it; the Palestinian population deserves it; and the entire world deserves it. The world will be more beautiful without the Hamas.

Egypt and Hamas agree. So what? Where does it say that Israel's terms are met?

Barak and livni feel the time to ceasefire has arrived, deterrence at this stage has mostly been reasserted and there is no point in losing any more soldiers as the IDF at this time is not reoccupying gaza. So olmert as dror warned(that's why he said he should have resigned long ago) will repeat his mistakes. Soldiers are being harmed now for not that much more to be gained. Olmert is causing this damage to israel. To demonstate his character flaws and weaknesses, he picks a fight with the US over rice on nothing, just his vanity-he is sick. If this ceasefire does not turn out good for israel, it could always attack and mover forward. Olmert cannot see and will never see. he is a hack lawyer, who straddles the fence of crininlaity in part because his friends in the law have sustained him during his trials.he needs to leave and get out. Israel knows him, has judged him,and rejected him. At the end, Livni and barak know that is the smuggling is not dealth with in the negotiation, they will lose badly to kiud. So, at this stage go with livni and barak and we'll see what happens. It would have been a good idea early for a lightening retaking of philadelphia, dig a moat and drown the tunnels but for some reason this was not done.

blaming everything on the "occupation" is a cop-out. israel occupied gaza and the west bank from 1967 to 1987, and the palestinians had better peace and prosperity that they have ever had before or since. since oslo, terrorism has increased significantly, not decreased. and israel had far fewer problems from gaza before 2005, under "occupation", than in the three years, and 4,000 rockets, since the withdrawal. "land for peace" has turned into "land for rockets"! so the answer isn't "occupation". or at least not israeli occupation. what has followed israeli occupation is terrorist occupation, by the plo. since arafat and tha plo were allowed to enter the territories (over 90% of palestinians now live in palestinian-controlled areas), the rate of terrorist attacks has risen exponentially, and the standard of living of the palestinians has dropped proportionately. so instead of regurgitating worn-out and meaningless drivel about israel being "occupiers", put the blame where it squarely belongs, namely the plo!

A cease fire is just what the name implies.It does not mean immediate Israeli withdrawal.By the way what happened to Hamas ferocious resistance fighters?

I wonder if Hamas would be willing to publish its charter in the world s leading newspapers?Why not?Are they embarassed?

and to the nation of Israel, a vain sacrifices and a lost... Again, them we win the batle but lost the war...

Hamas Political Bureau Moussa Abu Marzouk told the al-Arabiya television network earlier Wednesday that the IDF must hold its fire before it pulls out from the Strip. Oh yeah..in your dreams Marzuk,we are not playing games and we will continue until Hamas surrenders his terrorists and ARMS.. "Israel did not abide by any of the previous truce's conditions, and therefore there must be a short and pre-defined period between each stage, that would allow us to evaluate the situation and agree to move on to the next stage," he explained. Oh please Marzuk we have heard this before ha?All tthose at Hamas want is a breather to replenish their combatants and the armaments.If anyone believes the contrary,then they are being deluded.And we are NOT. So, Mr.Marzuk blame Hamas for its ills.We are not going to fall for an empty gesture. It looks like Haniyeh is desperate,or needs more time the sneaky B.....D! No,no ceasefire,let them cease firing on our towns and cities,OR ELSE..

Quite right but on reading further down I realized exactly what I was about to put down. The IDF should/will continue until Hams surrenders.No more discussions,meetings,pleadings by outside bodies will solve this problem. The one thing to cure a "cancer" is to excise it..Simple.

Hamas is obsessed with the annihilation of Israel and the extermination of the Jewish people. They are willing to sacrifice every man, woman an child in Gaza in order to kill us all. They have to be decisively defeated if the residents of southern Israel and the Arab settlers in Gaza are to every know peace.

NO !! we are not killers! we re soldiers...