Wednesday 28 April 2010

Zahhar: Hamas and its armed wing do not kill prisoners


[ 28/04/2010 - 10:14 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, stated Tuesday that Hamas and its armed wing do not kill prisoners in their custody and stressed that this is an unchanging moral position.

Dr. Zahhar told the Palestinian information center (PIC) that any other accounts in this regard do not concern Hamas which has declared clearly its policy of dealing with prisoners.

The Hamas official explained that his Movement uses the policy of capturing Israeli soldiers to swap them for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, noting that the peace negotiations which late president Yasser Arafat and his successor engaged in did not succeed in freeing prisoners.

He stressed that Hamas can not stay idly watching the Palestinian prisoners suffering in Israeli jails and doing nothing to get them released, adding that it will do its utmost to get the prisoners back to their families.

For his part, senior Hamas official Dr. Salah Al-Bardawil denied there is a contradiction between Al-Zahhar’s remarks and Al-Qassam Brigades’ ethics of dealing with prisoners.

In a press release on Tuesday, Bardawil said the animated video produced by the armed wing of Hamas holds Israel responsible for wasting time, balking at concluding the swap deal and deceiving the Israeli street.

He underlined that that the party that kills and tortures prisoners is Israel, which has killed in its jails 199 Palestinians and thus must be prosecuted in international courts.

Bardawil noted that Al-Qassam Brigades will be always committed to the civilized values of Islam with regard to dealing with prisoners.

In the same context, former Egyptian foreign minister and professor of international law Dr. Abdullah Al-Ashaal said that the video produced by Al-Qassam Brigades was an ironic message meant to ridicule the successive Israeli governments which promised their people to get soldier Gilad Shalit released and are still unable to do so.

As for the timing of screening the video, Ashaal told the PIC on Tuesday that Al-Qassam Brigades wanted to move the stagnant swap deal and to provoke the Zionist community into pressuring its government to pay attention to Shalit’s issue.

For his part, former director of information at the Palestinian national council Hasan Khalil described the video of Shalit as a clever way used to move the prisoner swap file after it reached a deadlock.

Khalil said in a press statement to the PIC that the video was a professional piece of work intended to urge the Zionist public to press their leaders to move the file and put it on the top of their agenda.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

No comments: