Israel Matzav

Gilad Shalit tape released

This afternoon, Hamas released an audio tape of Gilad Shalit on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of his kidnapping. The statement in the tape was probably coerced:

"Mother and father, my sister and brother, my friends in the Israel Defense Forces. I greet you from prison and miss you all," he said.

"I have spent a full year in prison, and my health is still deteriorating, and I need a prolonged hospitalization. I regret the lack of interest on the part of the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces in my case and their refusal to meet the demands of the al-Kassam brigades," he added.

In the tape, Schalit also called on the government to meet Palestinian demands for a large-scale prisoner swap, "especially since I was in the middle of 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 in 2004 and subsequently admitted that he had entered Lebanon to conduct a drug deal.

"Just as I have parents, a mother and father, the thousands of Palestinian prisoners have mothers and fathers to whom their sons must be returned," he said. "I have a great hope from my government that it show more interest in me and meet the demands of the mujahideen (captors,)" he said.

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.)"

Defense Minister Ehud Barak also responded quickly to the tape, saying its contents demonstrated that the organization responsible for the fate of Schalit was Hamas. [I find this curious, because the same people - the Dugmash clan - kidnapped both Shalit and BBC reporter Alan Johnston. Yet Hamas seems to have gotten control of Shalit but not of Johnston. CiJ]

Channel 2 analyst Ehud Ya'ari said immediately following the airing of Schalit's voice that it was "perfectly clear, without a [doubt that it had CiJ] had not been written by Schalit himself.

Ya'ari explained that the grammatical structure of the text and subtle mistakes that a native Israeli would not make pointed to the fact that the text had been written by the captors. [Ya'ari is Channel 2's - and formerly Channel 1's - Arab affairs reporter. CiJ]

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

For those who speak Hebrew, you can hear the tape here.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:09 PM