By host Tom Ashbrook:

Even for the Israelis and Palestinians, the last ten days have been an extraordinary face-off. A week ago Sunday, 19-year-old Israeli solider Galit Shalit was taken alive by Palestinians north of Gaza. The captors called for a prisoner exchange.

Israel responded with a giant hammer. Gaza’s bridges were knocked out, its power plant destroyed, a third of the Palestinian cabinet and many parliamentarians hijacked. Israeli tanks and troops rolled across the border and into a Gaza evacuated by Israel less than a year ago.

The Palestinian response: rocket attacks and defiance. Now Israel is talking war and warning “the sky will fall” on Hamas — and maybe Syria, too.

Hear about the latest and explosive standoff at Gaza.

Guests:

Steven Erlanger, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for The New York Times

Christopher Dickey, Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional Editor for Newsweek Magazine

Tamara Cofman Wittes, Research Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution

Ali Jarbawi, Professor and Dean at Birzeit University in Ramallah

Dan Sheufftan, Deputy Director of The National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa

Mark Regev, Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Israel