HAMAS HAS condemned Israel’s decision to impose stricter conditions on Palestinian security prisoners as a “brutal breach of international and humanitarian law”.
Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said the announcement by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu was designed to cover up his part in the failure to clinch a prisoner swap deal to bring back Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been in Hamas captivity for five years today.
“The only solution for achieving Shalit’s release is a deal that would fulfil Palestinian demands and put paid to the prisoner issue,” Mr al-Zahar said.
Mr Netanyahu, addressing a conference in Jerusalem on Thursday, organised by president Shimon Peres, said he was changing Israel’s policy regarding the prison terms for Palestinians jailed on security charges.
He declared that Israel would honour international law and obligations, but would not go beyond that. “There will be no more master’s degrees in murder and doctorates of terrorism,” Mr Netanyahu said. “The party is over.”
Activists are holding a series of events this weekend to mark five years since Gilad Shalit was seized by militants who tunnelled under the Gaza border.
Israel and Hamas have failed to agree the terms of a prisoner swap under which Israel will free 1,000 Palestinian detainees in return for the soldier. The last sign of life from Mr Shalit was a videotape message released by Hamas in September 2009.
Mr Netanyahu said that Israel must continue to pressure Hamas politically, morally and daily in order to advance a deal. He congratulated leaders in France, Italy and England who recently urged Hamas to free the captive soldier, or at least allow Red Cross visits.
Mr Netanyahu did not outline which prisoner privileges would be curtailed, but Israeli officials confirmed that recently academic studies have been stopped, and phone calls and visits have been cut back. Both Palestinian and Israeli analysts doubted that the Israeli move would lead to a softening of the Hamas position over a prisoner swap.
Palestinian Authority minister Qadura Fares said that for the last three years Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons had been prevented from taking matriculation exams and had been denied access to textbooks. “There is nothing more with which to make the prisoners’ lives harder as their current state is terrible,” he said.
Mr Shalit’s father, Noam, who last night celebrated the start of the Jewish Sabbath at a protest tent opposite the prime minister’s residence, dismissed Mr Netanyahu’s statement.
“We want to know why Israeli governments waited five years to take such a step, during which time Gilad languished in a Hamas jail. Israeli governments failed to pressure Hamas for five years and therefore it is doubtful they will know how to do this today.”
On Thursday, Hamas rejected the International Committee of the Red Cross demand to show proof that Mr Shalit is alive. Hamas said the organisation should also consider the suffering of the 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.