President Shimon Peres received a petition on Thursday that was signed by 300 students and teachers at the Amit high school in Hatzor, calling on him to get involved in efforts to free Jonathan Pollard, who has been behind bars for more than 24 years in the United States for passing classified information to Israel. The students wrote that the joy of next week's Purim holiday, "cannot be complete when Pollard is jailed in a friendly country."

Questioned by a 12th grader over Israel's failure to make as great an effort to free Pollard as is being made to free abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Peres said, "We have made a lot of efforts but the Americans refuse to release him. All the presidents and prime ministers have approached the president of the United States with a request that he be released and have been answered negatively until now. We will continue to add to our efforts until we can reach some sort of solution."