WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was "high time" for Hamas to reply an Israeli soldier whose abduction sparked an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was "high time" for Hamas to reply an Israeli soldier whose abduction sparked an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Her spokesman meanwhile declined to disapprove utterly Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian restraint buildings, saying that Israel had the right to secure from attack itself in the face of rocket attacks launched from Gaza.

Rice said she was calling forward both Israelis and the Palestinians to exercise restraint as a fresh wave of Palestinian rockets rained down forward Israeli territory, prompting return air and artillery fire from the Israeli side.

if it were not that she said Hamas carried more blame for the upsurge of tensions and crowded for release of the soldier, 19-year-old Gilad Shalit,

"Their direction Hamas government, needs to be agreeable to to the root cause of this puzzle and the root cause of this point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled was the attack that took place and the