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Militants set one-day deadline
03/07/2006 09:17 - (SA)
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| An Israeli soldier runs with a shell to reload an Israeli mobile artillery after it fired towards the Gaza Strip. (Ariel Schalit, AP) |
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Gaza City - Three Palestinian militant groups holding a teenage Israeli soldier on Monday set Israel a one-day deadline to meet their demands to free Palestinian prisoners.
"Faced with the Zionist enemy's persistence in taking military measures and aggressions, we give it a delay expiring Tuesday, July 4 at 06:00," said a statement issued by the Popular Resistance Committees, the armed wing of the governing Hamas movement and the Army of Islam in Gaza.
"If the enemy does not meet the demands we laid out in our previous statement... we will consider the matter closed and the enemy will be responsible for all results," the statement added.
On Saturday, the same three groups demanded the release of 1 000 Arab, Muslim, Palestinian and "other" prisoners but did not explicitly specify that the releases were conditions for securing the freedom of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was seized eight days ago.
Last Monday, they also called for the release of all Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails in exchange for information about the soldier, who was snatched in a deadly raid on an army post on June 25.
Israel has flatly ruled out any question of negotiating with the abductors or releasing prisoners in exchange for Shalit's release.
- AFP
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