Hamas playing mind games?
Hamas has been hinting lately that kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was killed during Operation Cast Lead this past winter. Hamas leader Osama Al-Mazini promised on Monday to deliver a letter from the family of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit if the prisoner survived Israel's assault on Gaza last winter.Surveys taken last summer in the lead-up to the exchange of Samir al-Kuntar and four lesser lights for (what turned out to be) the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev HY"D (may God avenge their blood) showed that most Israelis are unwilling to pay the same ransom for a dead soldier that they are willing to pay for a live one. At the very least, before Israel pays an exorbitant price for Shalit's release, we need to verify that he is alive.
"Hamas received the letter and promised to send it to the relevant persons. If he is alive it will reach him, but if he is dead it won’t reach him because we actually don’t know if he is still alive after the Gaza war," he said.
This is especially true if the following claim by Hamas is true.
He also said that Israel has agreed not to rearrest anyone freed in the deal, but that there were no guarantees the country's military would not attempt to assassinate them later.While I'd be happy to see many of these creeps killed, the precautions that Israel must take in order to avoid harming others in a targeted assassination makes it unlikely that Israel could kill all of the terrorists.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:21 AM
1 Comments:
Israel should agree to no deal with Hamas without independent verification of "signs of life" from Gilad Shalit. Hamas' word is not good enough. The fact Hamas has refused to allow the Red Cross access to Shalit is not a good sign. Israel's stand should be simple: Hamas can turn Shalit over to an independent third party or be left empty-handed. There is no point in paying ransom for a dead body.
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