Made-up Schalit interview published

Writer quotes soldier as 'saying' he is healthy, treated well.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
gilad schalit animated film 311 (photo credit: Screenshot)
gilad schalit animated film 311
(photo credit: Screenshot)
In yet another move possibly aimed at putting pressure on Israel to release Palestinian prisoners, Hamas on Monday published a fabricated interview with captured IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit.
The interview was published in the movement's official newspaper, Falasteen. The 'interviewer,' a political commentator, wrote that he had interviewed the soldier in captivity with a translator at his side, only to wake up and realize that it was all a dream.
The writer described Schalit as looking healthy and weighing about 60 kilograms. “I am now on the verge of completing my fourth year in captivity since falling hostage to the resistance movement,” Schalit was quoted as saying in the 'interview.' “I was injured, but I underwent treatment and now I am in good health, as you can see.”
Schalit was described as looking favorably upon his Hamas captors. “It would not be an exaggeration to say that I did not expect to be treated so well,” he was quoted as saying. “We were taught at school and in the army that Arabs are murderers and criminals who ought to die … [but] they are people who have feelings and love life.”
The captors, Schalit 'said,' “treat me in a cultured and humane manner, the opposite of what has been said.” The writer ended the fabricated interview with a plea from the captured soldier to his “people,” to “help” set him free.
An animated film released by Hamas military arm Izzadin A-Qassam Brigades in late April featured the soldier's father Noam Schalit as an old man, awaiting the return of his son in a coffin with an Israeli flag draped over it. Not unlike Monday's made-up interview, the film ends with Schalit the elder waking up at the protest tent in Jerusalem – that, too, was all a dream.