Ramallah A shop owner in Hebron has offered a 30 per cent discount on all items in his shop to celebrate Hamas’ capture of an Israeli soldier in Gaza. Rami Ashour was among many other shopkeepers in the West Bank offering similar discounts. Abu Nafiz, a taxi driver, offered to give one hour of service free of charge per day to celebrate the capture. Palestinians know from experience that to have a captured Israeli soldier is of great importance for future negotiations with Israel that can be used as a powerful bargaining chip. Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, says it captured an Israeli soldier by the name Shaul Aron late on Sunday, but Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, dismissed the claim, saying that “those rumours were untrue”.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas leader and spokesman, last week announced Israeli soldier Shaul Aron had been captured: “Al Qassam declared all the information about the military operations. When we said we captured the soldier, it’s true and everyone has to deal with that as true.” The Al Qassam Brigades did not say whether the captured soldier was dead or alive. Aron would be the first Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza since 2011, when Israel released more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners to free Gilad Shalit, a soldier who was held for more than five years after his 2006 capture in a cross-border raid. At first Israel denied the reports that Aron had been captured, but later admitted that he was missing.
