Hamas threatens to capture more "Israelis"

Source: Press TV, 21-03-2009

Hamas warns it may capture more "Israeli" soldiers as a last option after a Tel Aviv committee urged pressure on "Israeli"-held Palestinian inmates.
On Friday, the Palestinian resistance movement said Tel Aviv's non-contribution to a prisoner exchange between the two sides may leave the group no choice but to seize more "Israeli" troopers.

"When they refuse to release Palestinians, it forces the Palestinians to resort to other means to gain their release - and inevitably this includes the capture of more ‘Israeli' soldiers," said Hamas' political leader Khaled Meshaal in an interview with the Australian daily The Sydney Morning Herald.

The comments came after an "Israeli" committee, tasked with examining the conditions of confinement of nearly 11,500 Palestinian prisoners, urged the government to build up pressure on the inmates to force the release of Gilad Shalit -- the "Israeli" soldier captured in 2006 by Gazan fighters.
The two sides have so far failed to agree on a swap deal which would see Shalit's release in exchange for the freedom of 1,450 Palestinian prisoners.

Following Shalit's capture, "Israel" acted to almost block the flow of direly-needed supplies into the Gaza Strip before placing the coastal area under a stifling blockade in 2007. Tel Aviv claimed its actions were a response to alleged rocket attacks by Hamas on southern "Israel."

In July 2007, "Israel" agreed to open the region's border-crossings in exchange for progress in resolution of the prisoner ordeal and cessation of the rocket attacks. Tel Aviv, however, failed to live up to the promise.

"‘Israel' was supposed to end the siege and open the border crossings in return for a halt to the rockets; the rockets stopped, but the siege remained and the crossings stayed closed," Meshaal added.

"It's unfair to ask Palestinians if they want to die slowly under siege or quickly under fire," concluded the Hamas leader who himself survived an assassination attempt by the "Israeli" intelligence agency Mossad in 1997.