NEW VIDEO RELEASE SHOWS HAMAS ELITE UNIT TAKING CARE OF SHALIT

Gaza, 22 Rabiul Awal 1437/4 January 2016 (MINA) – Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, released new video clips on Sunday showing a special unit called “the Shadow Unit” guarding and humanly treating Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit when he was in captivity.

The video highlights members of the Shadow Unit as a highly trained and well-chosen team, who are assigned to guard and hide enemy captives held by al-Qassam Brigades and thwart attempts to find them.

“Members of the unit stay in the shadows, away from the light … and they operate in complete secrecy,” a spokesman for the Brigades says in the video. The Palestinian Information Center (PIC) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

The spokesman emphasizes that “members of the unit treats enemy captives well in line with the rules of Islam, and provides for their needs.”

He says this elite unit was established a decade ago and its members are “selected from all the military formations of the Brigades.”

Shalit is also seen eating, watching TV, reading letters from his family, drinking tea and talking with Hamas fighters and grilling meat at a beach barbecue in their company.

In one clip, Shalit sits in a large cell with an exercise bicycle and adjoining toilet as someone brings him a soft drink.

Shalit was released in October 2011 as part of a prisoner swap deal with the Israeli occupation government. (T/P011/R07)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)