The bodies of the abducted soldiers were returned to Israel in a 2004 prisoner exchange.

They acted as an intermediary in the release of the eight abducted soldiers.

A Hamas deadline for freeing the abducted soldier is at hand.

Speaking to reporters, she pointed to a way out of the crisis through the return of the abducted soldiers.

The aim had been to obtain information about the fate of the abducted soldiers but in fact none was obtained.

Thousands rallied in Brussels for Israel and demanding the release of the abducted soldiers.

We want to create a new equation - freeing the abducted soldier in return for lessening the pressure on the Palestinians."

It also said the report "includes the results of different tests and experiments intended to produce an accurate assessment of the abducted soldiers' current status."

He doubted that "there is anyone in the army" believing that 'better a dead soldier than an abducted soldier'.

The insurgents, they say, may make a symbolic spectacle of abducted soldiers or use captives to negotiate the release of Iraqi prisoners.

Hezbollah demanded the release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel in exchange for the release of the abducted soldiers.

The abducted soldier's long plight was extremely emotional issue within Israel, with large, tearful rallies on his birthdays and frequent media appearances by his father.

In retaliation Israel began the 2006 Lebanon War to rescue the abducted soldiers and to create a bufferzone in Southern Lebanon.

Two years later, on 16 July 2008, the bodies of the two abducted soldiers were returned to Israel by Hezbollah in exchange for Samir Kuntar and four Hezbollah prisoners.

A stun grenade from the abducted soldiers was thrown at the commandos and a handgun was allegedly taken from one soldiers and fired by an activist, who was intercepted.

Yossi Ginnosar, who was the Prime Minister's go-between with Mr. Arafat, said today that Israel had been willing to consider exchanging Sheik Yassin for the abducted soldier.

He was released in January 2004 with twenty other Lebanese prisoners, 400 Palestinian prisoners and a number of other nationals, as part of a deal to get the abducted soldiers and civilians back.

American officials have said that the soldiers implicated in that crime are from the same platoon of the 502nd Infantry as the two abducted soldiers, but investigators have yet to draw a direct link between the events.

There is a series of extra ops in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker known as the "Pooyan Missions", which involves shooting Fulton surface-to-air recovery balloons carrying abducted soldiers off into the air.

The order now states that IDF commanders may take whatever action is necessary, even at the risk of endangering the life of an abducted soldier, to foil the abduction, but it does not allow them to kill an abducted Israeli soldier.

Asked whether he was referring to cases like Ron Arad (an Air Force navigator captured in 1986) and Nachshon Wachsman (an abducted soldier killed in 1994 in a failed rescue attempt), he replied "definitely, and not only."

The order, drawn up in 1986 by a group of top Israeli officers, states that at the time of a kidnapping the main mission becomes forcing the release of the abducted soldiers from their kidnappers, even if that means injury to Israeli soldiers.

The United States thus gave full support to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who insists despite denials from the Palestinian leadership that the abducted soldier, Cpl. Nahshon Waxman, 20, is being held somewhere in Gaza by armed radicals of the Hamas Islamic group.

The order allows commanders to take whatever action is necessary, including endangering the life of an abducted soldier, to foil the abduction, however it does not allow for a soldier to be killed in order to prevent his abduction, according to the IDF chief of staff, Benny Gantz.

In 1999 the IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz said in an interview with Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth: "In certain senses, with all the pain that saying this entails, an abducted soldier, in contrast to a soldier who has been killed, is a national problem."