Ghoul: Shalit’s freedom conditional to release of old-serving prisoners

GAZA, — Justice minister Mohammed Al-Ghoul said that resistance is the best means to secure liberation of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli occupation authority (IOA) jails topped by those serving high sentences.

The minister, who head the national higher committee for the support of prisoners, told a workshop organized by his ministry on Wednesday, that Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit would not be released until Palestinian prisoners are freed especially the oldest serving prisoners.

He said that the IOA was not content with the torture and medical neglect of prisoners and went on to impose new sanctions such as total deprivation of visits, banning their education, and blocking entry of books and newspapers in addition to escalating the policy of solitary confinement.

The new violations necessitate wide-scale popular moves and unity of ranks and efforts for the sake of those prisoners, he said, championing an international intervention to check those violations before “things go out of control”.

Ghoul expressed surprise at the Arab and international silence toward the escalating IOA atrocities against those prisoners who are threatened to go out of the IOA jails in coffins especially when hundreds of them are sick and need urgent medical treatment.