Thoughts From the Radically Moderate

The violence is escalating people. What started as a simple mission to save a captured soldier and to cease attacks from Southern Gaza has turned into nothing less than war.

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Hezbollah guerrillas killed seven Israeli soldiers and captured two more Wednesday, triggering Israeli airstrikes and military raids inside southern Lebanon, Israeli officials said.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah told reporters that "direct negotiations" would be the only way to return the soldiers and that their capture was "our natural, only and logical right."

He demanded the soldiers be swapped for "our prisoners" held by Israel. A demand for Israel to release Palestinians from its jails has been made by Palestinian militants who captured another Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, last month....full story here.