Gaza City, April 29: A senior Hamas official accused Israel on Wednesday of dragging its feet over a long-delayed deal that would see a captured Israeli soldier exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
“The Zionist enemy bears responsibility for the foot dragging and the deceit of successive governments,” Mahmud al-Zahar said.
Zahar said Hamas’s armed wing had “proposed several virtuous initiatives and sent numerous messages in the form of photos, videos and audiotapes of Shalit showing him in good health.”
In contrast, he said Israel should be “condemned by the international community for its ill treatment and torture of Palestinian prisoners.”
Zahar said Hamas was “against killing prisoners, in conformity with the civilised ethics of Islam” and that it will “keep (Shalit) until the occupier (Israel) responds to our demands.”
This echoed what he already said on Tuesday that “our morals and our religion prevent us from doing that.”
Hamas and two smaller groups captured Shalit, now 23, in a deadly cross-border raid in June 2006.
Negotiations for a possible exchange appeared to hit a dead end in December. Hamas has blamed Israel over the stalled talks.
Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Strip.
Human rights groups, both international and Israeli, slammed Israel’s siege of Gaza, branding it “collective punishment.”
—Agencies