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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Change of Tact, Pressuring Hamas to Free Shalit

It has now been 1179 days since Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. This week his family is once again stepping up efforts to put pressure on the government to have him return home. Their latest move takes a tactical change putting pressure on Hamas, instaed of just the Israeli Government.

This week a Rosh Hashannah care package for Shalit has been travelling the country. Later today The families of 1000 Palestinian prisoners will hold a rally in Gaza. Simultaneously a rally to free Shalit will take place in Israel near the Gaza border crossing. The care package will then be delivered to Gaza in the hopes of making it to Shalit. When the Shalit family is satisfied he has received the package, 1000 care packages are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow to Israel and distributed to the prisoners.

The Palestinians families lost their ability to visit their family members as a direct result of the Shalit kidnapping. The rally on the Gaza side has Palestinian placing blame on Hamas for their suffering. Delivering the package would bring some comfort to a young man about to spend his 4th Rosh Hashanah locked away in captivity. Refusal to deliver the package is a further example of how Hamas would rather let their thousands of their own suffer, rather than bring comfort to one lonely person.

On Tuesday Hamas said they will make sure Shalit does not get the package. Hamas is once again letting their true cruelty show. This time it is obvious to all of the Palestinians involved. This is probably just an isolated incident, but Hamas is losing some support with elections scheduled to take place next year. This has the potential to eventually grow into something bigger with the Palestinians finally rejecting Hamas rule and possibly having Shalit return home. We can only hope.

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