Captured Israeli 'alive and well' (Shalit)

Palestinian militants who captured an Israeli soldier a year ago say he is in good health and being well treated. Cpl Gilad Shalit has not been heard from or seen since his capture on 25 June 2006 in a raid into Israel by Palestinian militants from Gaza.

"Shalit is alive and in very good shape," said Abu Mujahid, a spokesman for one of three groups linked to the militant Hamas group that captured him.

Noam Shalit said the embattled Ehud Olmert should step down if he failed to free Cpl Shalit by means of swapping detained Palestinians.

"It's the test of a leader," said Mr Shalit said at a rally marking the year's captivity on Sunday.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1182409634482&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Hamas releases tape with voice of captured soldier

jpost staff and ap, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 25, 2007

Captured IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Schalit said in an audio message posted on Hamas’s web site that his health was deteriorating and that he required hospitalization.

Schalit also said that he is disappointed over the “lack of interest” of the Israeli government in his fate.

The captured soldier urged the government to answer to the captors’ demands, “especially since I was on military service on a military operation and I was not a drug dealer” - probably said in reference to Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was abducted by Hizbullah and released as part of a prisoner exchange deal and subsequently admitted that he had entered Lebanon to conduct a drug deal.

Schalit’s father, Noam, listened to the tape on Channel 2 television, asking the station to play it a second time for the soldier’s mother to hear. He said it appeared that the statement was coerced.

“I imagine that it’s the same as the letter they dictated to him and doesn’t reflect his real state,” he said. “We want somebody independent to see him, to examine him and the conditions under which he is held, his medical condition of course and his mental (state).”

Channel 2 analyst Ehud Ya’ari said immediately following the airing of Schalit’s voice that it was “perfectly clear, without a doubt that the text was translated from Arabic” and was not written by Schalit himself.

Ya’ari explained that the grammatical structure of the text and subtle mistakes that a native Israeli would not make point to the fact that the text was written by the captors.

The estimation is that Hamas released an audio tape of Schalit as opposed to a video in order to avoid accusations of lying about Scahlit’s condition.

Earlier Monday, Izaddin al-Kassam, Hamas’s armed wing, announced that they would publish a voice recording of Cpl. Gilad Schalit’s to mark the one year anniversary of the IDF soldier’s capture.

Ayman Taha, a spokesman for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, said the recording would be a message to Prime Minster Ehud Olmert that he must answer the captors’ demands and release Palestinian prisoners, Israel Radio reported.

In response, the Prime Minister’s Office said that it had not received any new information on the captured soldier.

Also on Monday, Palestinians involved in Schalit’s kidnapping said that he was in good health and being treated well.

“Schalit is alive and in very good shape,” said Abu Mujahid, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, one of three Hamas-linked groups that captured Schalit. “His health is good and he’s stable. We are treating him according to our religion’s instructions on how to deal with war prisoners.”

Abu Mujahid said Schalit “doesn’t need anything” and is receiving the “best treatment.”

The group called for Schalit’s family to put pressure on the Israeli government to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for freeing Schalit. Schalit’s father, Noam, said Sunday at a rally calling for his release that the government was not doing enough to bring him home.

If Israel wants Schalit freed, the government should agree to release Palestinian prisoners who are women, children, elderly, sick, leaders of factions and people serving long sentences, Abu Mujahid said.

Israel has agreed to a prisoner swap in principle, but balked at some of the Palestinian demands for the number and type of prisoners to be freed.

Meanwhile, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem accused those holding Schalit of war crimes.

“International humanitarian law absolutely prohibits taking and holding a person by force in order to compel the enemy to meet certain demands, while threatening to harm or kill the person if the demands are not met,” the group said. “Furthermore, hostage-taking is considered a war crime.”

Hamas is responsible for securing Schalit’s release since it effectively controls the security situation in Gaza, B’tselem said. The operatives holding the soldier have violated international law further by not allowing Red Cross representatives to visit him, the group said.

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