GAZA (PIC)– Israeli premier Ehud Olmert is under growing internal pressures to negotiate Hamas in order to release Gilad Shalit the IOF soldier after one year in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
This came after the Qassam Brigades the armed wing of the Hamas broadcast on Monday a tape recording of the soldier Shalit in which he said that his health was deteriorating and urged the Olmert government to respond to Hamas’s conditions for his release.
For his part Israeli deputy premier Eli Yishai called for studying the possibility of holding negotiations with Shalit’s captors.
Meretz bloc in the Israeli parliament also called on Olmert to “immediately renew negotiations for the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit” adding that Tel Aviv had not done its best to secure his release.
“The Israeli government is fully responsible for Shalit and it’s not concerned about his life as confirmed by Shalit himself” Osama Al-Muzaini a Hamas leader stated in a press release.
For his part the Palestinian retired Colonel Yousef Al-Sharqawi asserted that the faction holding the Israeli soldier had achieved a security triumph when it managed to hide Shalit over that period saying: “In spite of the Zionist intelligence apparatuses’ efforts but the Qassam Brigades have shown that it has potentials to hide not only Shalit but also 10 other Israeli soldiers.”
Meanwhile the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth said that an opinion poll conducted on its website indicated that 61% of Israelis were in favor of releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners including those involved in killing Israelis in return for the release of Shalit.
