An Israeli soldier captured a year ago by militants from Gaza asked for medical treatment and urged Israel to release Palestinian prisoners, in an audio tape posted on the Internet today.
Abu Mujahed, PRC spokesperson
Sergeant Gilad Shalit was captured on June 25th, 2006 by gunmen from the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) along with militants from Hamas, who tunnelled into Israel from the Gaza Strip. He has not been heard from since he was spirited into the Palestinian territory, except for a hand-written letter to his parents.
"I have been in prison for an entire year and my health is deteriorating. I need lengthy hospitalisation," Sergeant Shalit, speaking in Hebrew, said on the tape.
"I regret the lack of interest of the Israeli government and military in my case and their failure to meet the demands." Sergeant Shalit's father, speaking to Israeli television, confirmed the voice was that of his son, a conscript now aged 20.
He was promoted to sergeant from corporal while in captivity.
On the tape, Sergeant Shalit called on Israel to make a deal for his release. "Just as I have parents, a mother and father, thousands of Palestinian detainees have mothers and fathers whose sons must be returned to them," the voice said.
Negotiations brokered by Egypt have been suspended in recent months amid Palestinian internal fighting in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas now rules alone, and Israeli-Palestinian violence.
"We have been flexible in every possible way when it came to a swap deal, but the Israeli side was too weak to make a decision," senior Hamas official Osama al-Muzaini said. "The ball is now in the Israeli court."
One of the groups that captured Sergeant Shalit, the Army of Islam, part of an array of militants that mingle within Gaza's clan structures, also holds British journalist Alan Johnston.
Johnston appeared in a web video yesterday saying he was strapped with explosives that would be detonated if Hamas leaders carried out threats to free him by force.
Abu Mujahed, spokesman of the Popular Resistance Committees that also took part in last year's cross-border raid, said the factions must celebrate the first anniversary of the abduction by kidnapping additional Israeli soldiers so they could be exchanged for more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails.
"The soldier Shalit will never be freed before we see our prisoners freed and among us," he said at a rally attended by dozens of families of Palestinians held by Israel.
"(Shalit) is alive and is in good health," he added.
Shalit made contact with the outside world last September when his captors delivered a letter he had hand-written to his family via an Egyptian intermediary.
Israel has previously warned Hamas leaders the "sky will fall on them" if the abducted soldier is harmed. After his release Israeli tanks and infantry massed along the Gaza Strip's northern border and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the campaign launched to free Shalit could turn into "a long war".