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Sarkozy denounces treatment of French-Israeli soldier

Nicolas Sarkozy denounced on Friday the "total lack of humanity" in which soldier Gilad Shalit is being held by Hamas in Gaza. The day marked the fourth anniversary of the French-Israeli soldier's captivity in what Human Rights Watch called cruel conditions.

Reuters
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Shalit was captured in a cross-border raid on 25 June 2006 while serving in the Israeli army.

The French president called it a "sad anniversary" in a letter to Shalit's parents, adding "like all French, I find it disgraceful that a man should be deprived not only of liberty, but also of all contact with family and friends."

Sarkozy was not the only one marking Shalit's four years of captivity.

Residents of the southern Israeli city of Sderot released balloons from a hill overlooking the Gaza Strip.

And in Tel Aviv, about 100 Israelis rode bikes to embassies of UN Security Council members with letters asking ambassadors to hold a session about Shalit.

Human Rights Watch said Shalit's prolonged incommunicado detention "may amount to torture."

"Hamas authorities are violating the laws of war by refusing to allow Shalit to correspond with his family," the New York-based group said.

Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza coast four years ago in efforts to secure Shalit's release, but eased the sanctions this week following international pressure fuelled by the 31 May attacks on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

Negotiations for a prisoner swap have also stalled. Hamas wants Israel to release hundreds of prisoners, including several top militants responsible for multiple Israeli deaths, in exchange for Shalit.

Israel will end "yielding to the conditions of the resistance," Osama Hamdan, Hamas' representative in Lebanon, said in a statement posted on the website of the group's armed wing.

But so far, it is a price Israel has been reluctant to pay.

A majority of Israelis favour a swap, according to a poll published by the Yediot Aharonot daily on Friday.

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