Zionist Israel’s escalation will only solidify our prisoner exchange conditions

Gaza- Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri has said Zionist Israel’s recent escalation against the Palestinian prisoners will only increase his movement’s firmness on the conditions it set on a prisoner exchange deal.

Hamas “asserts that there is no way to end the suffering of the prisoners except by [exchanging] Shalit or other Zionist Israeli soldiers,” Abu Zuhri told the Palestinian Information Center on Saturday.

Abu Zuhri also said that the escalation, which was launched to pressure Hamas into releasing captured soldier Gilad Shalit, has been one of the causes complicating Shalit’s release.

The Hamas spokesman went on to call on the groups who recently called on Hamas to release Shalit to consider Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to tighten conditions on Palestinian prisoners. Many of Hamas’s senior prisoners have been transferred to solitary confinement marking the fifth year of Shalit’s capture.

The Palestinian Center for the Defense of Detainees has declared that the Israeli Prison Service has committed a war crime after denying senior Hamas prisoner Waleed Aql from receiving medical treatment and placing senior Hamas prisoner Yehya al-Sinwar in isolation without apparent cause.

According to Aql’s son, the prisoner has asked for a blood-sugar reader and special food to conform to his need, but the prison has so far ignored all requests.