[ 31/03/2011 - 08:51 AM ]
NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Shaul Mofaz, head of the Knesset's foreign affairs and security committee, has threatened to heighten restrictions on Palestinians held in Israeli prisons as Israeli political pressure to see captured soldier Gilad Shalit is released soars.
Mofaz's threats came during a visit to the Ofer prison near Ramallah city as he toured the facility with Knesset members from the Labor and Likud parties and vowed to discontinue the prison canteen system and deny prisoners rights to visits and to some television stations.
The move was motivated by the continued detention of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by resistance factions in the Gaza Strip in 2007, according to rights groups who quoted the Ofer prisoners.
Mofaz went to the prison a first time two weeks ago and threatened to take arbitrary action against the inmates.
The prisoners said then that Mofaz intended to promote himself politically as the alternative to Kadima party head Tzipi Livni and used the Palestinian prisoner issue to do that among party members.
Meanwhile, the Israeli free-Shalit committee has ruled out that Abu Sisi from Gaza was secretly abducted from the Ukraine 40 days back because of suspicion of having secret information about Shalit.
The group said that the report first published by the German Dir Spiegel newspaper was only a media tool to allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to buy time and to boast about the measures he has taken towards freeing Shalit.
Shalit's father has pronounced publically that Netanyahu's government has so far been impotent in pressuring Hamas in order to free Shalit.
Dir Spiegel suggested that Abu Sisi, an engineer from Gaza who disappeared mysteriously during a visit to the Ukraine, had information on Shalit's whereabouts.
Israeli Radio announced Wednesday night that Shin Bet has informed the Israeli government that it will present an indictment against Abu Sisi.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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