Gilad Shalit - missing for a month - where is he ?

Daily Press Briefing / US State Department / Tom Casey, Deputy Spokesman / July 27, 2006

A curious exchange occurred last week at the start of the Daily Press Briefing at State.

Question (From Sylvie (?) .... I mean, if the U.S. has any independent information about reports that there may be an imminent solution on the soldier (inaudible)

MR. CASEY: Other than the press reports, I don't have any information that I can offer you right now. Obviously, it has been one of our longstanding goals in this situation to see the release of the captive Israeli soldiers, both those held by Hamas and those held by Hezbollah. President Abbas has been one of the people that we have been talking to to try and help move that process forward. Certainly, we would love to see that happen. We believe it would be an important step forward in dealing with some of the issues that prompted the current military actions in Gaza and the West Bank. And so we certainly hope it's true, but I don't have any independent confirmation for you.

So Israel unleashes themselves on Gaza and up to press kills 100 civilians, levels houses,terrorises villages and smashes up a power station, bridges, roads, docks, uses Gaza as a free fire artilery range, maintains supersonic carpet booming day and night because, ostensibly one of their soldiers have been kidnapped.... and the US State Department relies on Press reports ?

The Jerusalem Post reports that head of Shin Bet,Yuval Diskin reported to the Israeli Cabinet that efforts to rescue kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit were not succeeding but reported that "it is extremely likely that Shalit is alive and well in the Gaza Strip."

Noam Shalit, Gilad's father, said yesterday that he wasn't aware of attempts to secure his son's release other than those of Egypt. Noam Shalit said that the family had not received any new information from the Israeli government regarding their son's condition. So we are expected to believe that the Israeli Government are relying on Egyptians to find one of their sons - meanwhile keeping their parents un-informed ?

Haaretz in reporting what Abbas said in Rome (apparently after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told Abbas in a recent phone conversation that an end to the crisis over Shalit may be imminent) about " a resolution appears to be imminent" quoted Abbas's former adviser, Jibril Rajoub, who said on Wednesday that a solution to the crisis would be found "next week". Members of Hamas's military wing, Iz al-Din al-Qassam, denied this, a spokesman for the group, Abu Obeida,who has appeared since the kidnapping as a spokesman, reiterated that "the case of the Israeli soldier is closed."

Uruknet today re-publish an article from What really Happened
Israel Fakes a Provocation - (the "kidnapping" of Cpl Gilad Shalit)

Interestingly the father of one of the soldiers seized by Hezbollah, Ehud Goldwasser, turned up at a highly secretive Zionist rally under conditions of massive Police security in Manchester this Sunday.

Gilad Shalit - missing for a month - Lord Patel repeats, where is he ?