Dear Sirs

My attention was recently drawn to an open letter, concerning the present fate of Mordechai Vanunu, and bearing your signatures. I wish to endorse your voices of concern for those who are the victims of injustice, whose human rights are violated and whose freedoms curtailed.

With this in mind and with regard to the trust and confidence many hold in your obvious concerns for the protection of human rights, I would ask you to unite once again and publicly voice your concern for Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

Early on Sunday morning, 25 June 2006, Cpl Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Palestinians who attacked an Israeli army post on the Israeli side of the southern Gaza Strip border after having crossed through an underground tunnel near the Kerem Shalom border crossing. 

Three weeks after Gilad Shalit was abducted, Hezbollah seized Israeli Sgts Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, in a cross-border raid. That development was seen as the spark that provoked last year's war in southern Lebanon.

In June 2007, Shalit's voice was heard in an audio tape released by his captors, in which the Israeli corporal stated: "I, the soldier Gilad, son of Noam Shalit, am being held by the Khattab Shaheed Izz al-Deen al-Kassam (the military wing of Hamas). My health condition is deteriorating and I need extensive hospitalization".

Hezbollah has refused to state whether Eldad and Ehud are alive, and all attempts by the International Red Cross and others to be given access to these prisoners have been rebuffed.

I appeal to you to come together in a humanitarian gesture, as for Mordechai Vanunu, join with Amnesty International, other churchmen and statesmen around the world, in calling on the Palestinian armed groups who are holding hostage Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, not to harm them and to immediately release them back to their families.

Yours sincerely

SG

 Scottish Friends of Israel

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