JERUSALEM: The father of an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants has asked the Supreme Court to ensure the blockade of the Gaza Strip is maintained, public television reported on Saturday.
Noam Shalit, the father of 21-year-old Gilad, who was seized on June 25, 2006, asked the court to ensure the government does not open border crossings because of the lack of progress in freeing his son.
The conscript was captured in a deadly cross-border raid by fighters including members of Hamas, which for the past year has ruled in the impoverished and densely populated coastal strip.
On Thursday, Shalit s father criticized a truce between Israel and Hamas which entered its third day on Saturday.
The truce was concluded after months of indirect, Egyptian-brokered negotiations between Hamas and Israel, which had been mulling a wider military offensive in Gaza in a bid to halt militant rocket fire.
In addition to Israel halting its military strikes in Gaza and Palestinian militants stopping their rocket and mortar fire, the deal also entails a gradual easing of the blockade.
Israeli authorities said this should start on Sunday with an increase of goods allowed into the Palestinian enclave.
But they made it clear an opening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, the only one that bypasses Israel, would depend on the fate of Shalit.
Israel and Hamas will renew indirect talks in Cairo on Tuesday on a prisoner exchange involving Shalit, a senior Israeli defense official said on Thursday.
Israel knows it will have to pay a heavy price for Shalit s release and free many Palestinian terrorists, the official, who asked not to be named, said. -AFP
