Dozens of protesters demonstrated outside the Shikma prison in the northern Negev Wednesday morning to demand that the Red Cross stop visiting Arab terrorists in Israel jails while kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is denied the same right. Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas and allied terrorists in June 2006. He is thought to be alive, but the Red Cross has not been allowed to visit him, as required under the Geneva Convention.
Israel has allowed Red Cross officials to visit Arab terrorists several times. The Olmert administration also granted the same right for visits to Hizbullah terrorists arrested during the Second Lebanon War although the terrorist organization refused to allow the Red Cross to determine the fate of soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who it was later discovered were brutally murdered.
The Olmert administration also granted the same right for visits to Hizbullah terrorists arrested during the Second Lebanon War.
Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Cabinet earlier this year approved the release of the Hizbullah terrorists, along with Lebanese child murderer Sami Kuntar, in return for the soldiers, whose deaths were not known until their coffins arrived from Lebanon.
Wednesday's demonstrators included schoolchildren as well as new Likud member Zev Jabotinsky, the grandson of the Revisionist leader of the same name. He criticized Prime Minister Olmert for not "preventing the Palestinian mothers from visiting the inmates [which] would have caused such pressure on Hamas leaders" to release Shalit.
The Red Cross is expected to visit Hamas Wednesday, but previous discussions with the terrorist authority have ended without permission to determine the soldier's condition. Angelo Gnaedinger, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, met with Hamas de facto prime minister Ismail Haniyeh last year and said that the request to visit Shalit "was under consideration."
Prime Minister Olmert said that the June 19 Gaza ceasefire, which has crumbled in the past month, was directly tied towards winning Shalit's freedom.
Shortly after Shalit's abduction, which took place during a cross-border raid on the IDF at a Gaza crossing that killed two other soldiers, Olmert vowed not to resume negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas until Shalit was returned to Israel and to his family.
Hamas has insisted that the release of Shalit is tied to Israel's freeing some 1,500 terrorists, including those who have murdered Israeli citizens and soldiers.