A spokesman for the Hamas-led Palestinian government said today that he is concerned for the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinian militants and wants him protected.
Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad
"First of all, I'm human and I feel like his mother and his father do, and I know what it's like to be a prisoner," Ghazi Hamad told Israel's Army Radio in Hebrew, which he learned while serving five years in Israeli jails.
"You want to protect the soldier, and we are also interested in such a thing and we . . . don't want to reach a situation of bloodshed, here or there."
In interviews on Israeli media, Hamas has tried to calm tempers and dissuade Israel from carrying out a broad offensive in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the kidnapping Sunday during a Palestinian attack on an army base along the Israel-Gaza border.
Hamad said on Monday that Cpl. Gilad Shalit (19) was alive and urged his captors to keep him safe.
Israel believes the Hamas military wing was involved in the kidnapping and that the group's leader, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, is trying to get the militants to release him.
AP
