Red Cross officials have assured an all-party delegation of MPs that they are continuing to pressure armed factions in Gaza to allow them to visit captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held captive for more than two years.
“We have made it clear that the Shalit case is very high on our list of priorities and we deplore the fact that our delegates have been refused access to him,” a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said after the meeting in London on Wednesday.
The MPs, Tories Alistair Burt and James Arbuthnot (chair of Conservative Friends of Israel), Labour’s Andrew Gwynne (chair of Labour Friends of Israel) and Liberal Democrat Sir Alan Beith, were encouraged by the International Director of the British Red Cross, Matthias Schmale, to continue political pressure on the soldier’s behalf.
The more the case was raised, he said, the better the chance that the Red Cross would be able to gain access to Mr Shalit.