A Palestinian militant group says the Israeli soldier captured more than six months ago is in good health and is being treated according to "Islamic standards" of dealing with prisoners of war.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Resistance Committees, Abu Mujahid, says Corporal Gilad Shalit will not be released until Israel frees 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Egypt has been mediating a prisoner exchange deal. The Palestinian Resistance Committees is one of three militant groups that claimed responsibility for abducting the Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid June 25.
In other news, Israel's security service, Shin Bet, says it is holding the former imam of the largest mosque in the midwestern U.S. state of Ohio. The United States deported imam Fawaz Damra to Jordan last week, and he crossed into the Israeli occupied West Bank.
This is the first time that Israel has acknowledged that it is holding the cleric.
Shin Bet says it arrested the cleric because of his ties to the radical Palestinian group, Islamic Jihad.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
