New revelations about Gilad Shalit’s time in Hamas captivity are slowly coming out into the open. On Sunday Yedioth Ahronoth revealed that the kidnapped soldier decided to stop eating while captive and reached a point of malnutrition that put him in a life threatening situation.
According to the report, Shalit’s hunger strike advanced his release as Hamas senior officials feared for his life.
An intelligence source said that “there were those in Hamas who feared that the extreme conditions under which Shalit was being held would mean they could not offer him the help he needed and he would die on them,” and so they compromised over the details of the prisoner exchange deal.
Newly released details also reveal that for the most part Shalit’s captors did not physically abuse him, other than beatings that did not leave any long lasting or permanent damage.
Shalit was guarded by four Hamas members who were brought in from abroad especially for the secret mission. The foreign operatives were not replaced at any time during Gilad’s captivity. “The four guards basically sentenced themselves to the same conditions in which Gilad was being incarcerated,” the Israeli intelligence source noted.
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