TULKAREM (PIC)– A PA minister and a Hamas official on Thursday stressed the importance of the Palestinian captives’ issue to the Palestinian people.
The two were addressing a seminar held in the northern West Bank city of Tulakarem to mark the Prisoners’ Day.
Wasfi Qabha Government Minister for the Wall and Colonies affairs told the audience that the solution to the captive’s issue is one of the most important keys to peace in the region and that if the captives are not freed it will be the spark for the third intifada against the occupation.
He also told the audience that there are 11500 Palestinian captives in Israeli occupation jails amongst them 400 minors 125 women 1000 sick captives 150 of them in serious condition and 41 in Ramla prison hospital.
Qabha who held the portfolio for the Ministry of Detainees in the previous government stressed that the occupation “will not give us our usurped rights back and thus we have to sacrifice to get our rights by ourselves and being imprisoned is one of these sacrifices.”
He cited the case of Nelson Mandela who spent 25 years in jail defending his people’s rights until the world opened its doors to him.
He added that there is much international hypocrisy when dealing with the issue of Palestinian captives saying that while so many governments and politicians were demanding the release of one captured Israeli soldier they are ignoring the plight of over 11000 Palestinian captives and stressed that it is the moral duty of every free person around the world to support our captives.
He also said that the captives have united Arabs for the Palestinian cause; “there is Samir al-Qintar from Lebanon who spent 28 years in occupation jails and there is also Sultan al-Ajlouni from Jordan.”
He told the audience about some captives who have spent five years in solitary confinement to demoralize them and talked about the medical neglect the captives suffer at occupation jails.
“Everywhere in the world even in the Zionist entity itself people under the age of 18 are not considered adults but Palestinian captive of 16 or over are treated as adults by the Israeli occupation” he said.
Meanwhile Osama Hamdan Hamas representative in Lebanon talking at the same seminar said that a prisoner exchange deal the negotiations for which are moving slowly will not be accepted by Hamas unless all its demands are accepted by Israel otherwise resistance factions will be forced to capture more Israeli soldier.
He also said that Hamas will remain faithful to the blood of martyrs its resistance will not be thwarted and will use every means to free the captives.
