The deadline set by the Palestinian militants holding an Israeli soldier has come and gone. The kidnappers of Cpl. Gilad Shalit had given Israel until 6 a.m. local time to comply with their ultimatum to start releasing Palestinian prisoners. The 19-year-old soldier was captured nine days ago, during a cross-border raid. Since his capture, Israel has launched a series of strikes on a number of targets in the Gaza Strip, including the office of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of the Hamas movement.

On Monday, the three groups holding the soldier released a statement saying the Israelis should start releasing around 1,500 prisoners by the Tuesday deadline. However, Israel reiterated that it would not negotiate and Prime Minster Ehud Olmert said he would not give in to "extortion."

A spokesman for the smallest of the militant groups, the Islamic Army, told reporters: "Whether he will be killed or not killed, we will not disclose any information about the fate of the soldier." However, he later said, "We do not kill captives. Our Islam requires that we treat captives well and fairly."

Western countries, which have cut off aid to the Hamas government, have urged for the release of the soldier and called on Israel to show restraint. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the European Union was "very concerned about the negative developments we are now seeing." He said, "We in the commission are ready to assist all the efforts of our member states to positive contributions."

The German press is pessimistic about the options open to the Israelis and the international community to solve the crisis.

The Financial Times Deutschland compares the current kidnapping crisis with 2004 when the Israelis negotiated with Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon for the release of 436 prisoners in exchange for a captured Israeli and the bodies of three soldiers. "Is it any wonder that the Palestinians look to Hezbollah as a role model?" the paper asks. "The extremist organizations in the Palestinian territories have long wanted to carry out a kidnapping and it is only now that they have succeeded." The paper points out that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is breaking with tradition by refusing a prisoner exchange. It argues that this "dramatic shift" in Israel's dealings with kidnappings is "necessary and correct" -- otherwise it risks fostering a situation where one hostage drama after another will ensue. However, the paper argues that Olmert must negotiate and "try to ensure the release of the captured soldier without creating incentives for further kidnappings." According to the paper, Olmert is certainly prepared to make "limited concessions," such as the release of the eight Hamas ministers and officials who were arrested a few days ago in the West Bank, for example. But he will want to prevent a further "Hezbollahization." Hamas already imitated Hezbollah with its suicide bomb attacks. According to FTD, "it is dawning on some Palestinians that the government in Jerusalem is dealing with this kidnapping differently to those in Southern Lebanon" This is because "unlike the Hamas militia, the Shiite militia can count on strong connections with Iran and Syria. Shalit's kidnappers have little support."

The left-wing Die Tageszeitung is pessimistic about the chances for an international resolution of the current crisis. The Middle East Quartet -- the United States, EU, Russia and the United Nations -- had described itself as the "guardians of the peace process," presenting the quartet members as "honest brokers between the Israelis and the Palestinians." However, the current crisis makes clear the extent to which the Quartet has failed. The paper points out a number of reasons for this failure: firstly, its "partiality." Over the past three weeks the Quartet "held its tongue as 20 civilians died as a result of constant Israeli pounding of the Gaza Strip. It was only with the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier that it suddenly lifted a finger." The Quartet should also have "been working over the past year and a half to transform the unilateral cease fire by Hamas into a bilateral one." The paper continues: "The decision to boycott the Hamas government now seems to be a failure too." As a result, Americans and Europeans have no access to the right people. According to the newspaper, "the Quartet now has to put pressure on Presidential president Mahmoud Abbas, who has to pass this on to the Hamas government, which then has to put the militant groups under pressure." It points out that "without diplomatic channels, there is no diplomacy and thus no diplomatic solution."

The conservative Die Welt writes that since the Israelis withdrew from the Gaza Strip and gave up the settlements, the ability of the Palestinians to establish a stable state has been put to the test. "The results have been catastrophic. Gaza, instead of becoming a model of Palestinian autonomy has become a hell hole." The Israeli reaction of shelling is a "disproportionate retaliation without a clear and reachable political goal." The paper argues that this policy is not going to just result in more of the same. One has to see that with the rise of Hamas to power a "different, unlimited game has begun." It is no longer the Palestinian nationalism of Fatah, but "the pan-Arabic, revolutionary fundamentalism, in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood that threatens the conservative Arabic regimes just as it does, in another way, the Jewish State." The paper concludes that "the small war over Gaza shows signs of spinning out of control." The Quartet, as well as Egypt, the Saudis and Israel have to understand that "if the fire brigade hesitates the fire in Gaza, it will spread across the whole neighborhood."