Islamic Jihad senior member: Use violence and kidnappings to free Palestinian prisoners

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Islamic Jihad senior member: Use violence and kidnappings to free Palestinian prisoners

Al-Hayat Al-Jadida - Mar. 1, 2011

Headline: “Rights, dignity and resistance will remain deficient in view of the rift and the non-release of prisoners”
“During the weekly sit-down strike by the families of prisoners… Sheikh Khaled Al-Batsh, a senior member of the Islamic Jihad movement… emphasized: “In order to honor the prisoners who have been sentenced to lengthy periods of imprisonment, we must adhere to resistance and arrest (i.e., kidnap) occupation (i.e., Israeli) soldiers and settlers in order to have prisoners released. This is because the Palestinian resistance has shown that it is capable of kidnapping soldiers and holding them for a very long period, as has happened with Shalit (i.e., Gilad Shalit, kidnapped Israeli soldier held hostage since 2006 by Hamas), until Palestinian conditions are met…” He noted that if the factions have not been able to release prisoners for the past 20 years, they must reconcile [among themselves] and escalate the resistance in order to fight the occupation.”