On the anniversary of the capture of the Zionist soldier “Gilad Shalit”, which was exchanged with more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners, Hamas stressed that it still has its hands full in the case of the exchange of prisoners with the Zionist regime.
Fifteen years after the June 25, 2006 capture of Gilad Shalit, Hamas has insisted that the “Shadow Unit” in “Kataeb al-Izz al-Din al-Qassam” – the military wing of the movement – still holds several Israeli occupying forces in its custody and awaits a new agreement on the exchange of prisoners and the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.
Gilad Shalit was captured by Kataeb al-Qassam in 2006 and exchanged with 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in 2011. Almost six years ago, Kataeb al-Qassam announced the formation of the Shadow Unit as a media outlet whose mission is to secure the captured Israeli military. The unit was formed ten years before it was announced in the media, and according to resistance commanders, its forces are carefully selected and receive special training to be able to carry out their mission to the best of their ability.
“Voice of Fatah al-Akhbari” news site wrote in a report on the occasion of the anniversary of Shalit’s capture: According to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander-in-chief of Al-Qassam, Mohammed al-Daif, had said on June 7 that the Palestinian resistance had a lot to bargain for in order to successfully implement an honorable document on the exchange of prisoners.
The case of the Palestinian prisoners and their release from the Israeli-occupied prisons is of particular importance to the Hamas movement, and Marwan Issa stressed that this is currently the most important case against al-Qassam Command.
The Shalit capture operation marks a major shift in the Palestinian resistance’s military, security and field capabilities, because the unit in the shadow of Al-Qassam, after capturing this Zionist army, was able to hide him for five years, and it was a great defeat for the security and intelligence services of the occupiers, who could not find the hiding place of this army during this period.
Following the defeat of the occupiers in the late 2008 war against the Gaza Strip to retake Shalit, they entered into indirect negotiations with the Palestinian resistance through the mediation of Egypt, which led to a prisoner exchange document known as the Shalit Videotape Document.
The Hamas movement has captured four Israelis since the summer of 2014, two of whom are military personnel who took part in the war and two others who entered Gaza illegally. In contrast, 4,500 Palestinian prisoners, including 41 women, 140 underage Palestinians, and 440 administrative detainees, are being held captive by the Zionist regime.