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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Barak to AG: Limit Hamas prisoner visits as pressure for Shalit release |
| 2008-10-23 |
| Defense Minister Ehud Barak is seeking to widen a ban on family visits to Hamas prisoners held in Israel in a bid to pressure the Islamist group to release captured soldier Gilad Shalit, according to a document released on Wednesday. In a letter to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, Barak requested that he examine the legal aspects of preventing families of Hamas prisoners from the West Bank from visiting them in jail. Israel has already cut off family visits to Hamas inmates from the Gaza Strip as part of an overall tightening of border restrictions since the group seized the territory from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction in 2007. Barak, citing in the letter his reasons for wanting to widen the visiting ban, said that in the absence of an Israeli military operation, "all other possibilities must be explored" in securing Shalit's release. Shalit was captured by Gaza militants, including Hamas fighters, two years ago. In exchange for his release, Hamas has demanded that Israel set free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners it holds. Barak, in the letter, described Hamas's demands as "extortion" and accused it of foot-dragging in indirect negotiations, mediated by Egypt, on a prisoner exchange. Abu Mujahed, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, one of the groups that took part in the cross-border raid that captured Shalit, said Barak's move "would not force the factions holding him to drop any of their demands." Some 11,000 Palestinians are incarcerated in Israeli prisons and securing their release is a highly emotive issue in Palestinian society, which regards them as symbols of resistance to occupation. |
| Posted by:Fred |