Hamas
chief Khaled Mashaal told British broadcaster Sky News Monday that Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Palestinian militants in June 2006, is still alive and being treated well.
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On Shalit, Mashaal said: "Gilad is still alive and we are treating him in a good way while the Israelis treat our prisoners badly and everyone knows that."
Shalit was seized on June 25, 2006 from an army base near Gaza by militants from three groups including Hamas, which evicted Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah group from the territory in a week of bloody clashes last June.
A senior Hamas leader, Mahmud al-Zahar, warned earlier this month that Shalit would only be released if all of the group's demands were met.
Also in the interview, Mashaal said Israel was the "problem" in reaching a deal to "let the civilian people from the two sides be free from our conflict."
He described rocket attacks into Israel as "an ordinary reaction towards the Israeli occupation" and said that while Hamas did not deny the Holocaust, "we believe the Zionists have exaggerated the numbers to get sympathy from other nations."
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