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January 3, 2016 6:51 pm
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Never-Before-Seen Footage of Schalit Captivity Released by Hamas; Sources Close to Former Captive Call It ‘Act for the Camera’ (VIDEO)

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avatar by Ruthie Blum

Gilad Schalit, seen in newly released Hamas footage, grilling meat with his captors. Photo: Screenshot.

Gilad Schalit, seen in newly released Hamas footage, grilling meat with his captors. Photo: Screenshot.

Four days after releasing footage of Gilad Schalit in captivity, Hamas revealed a more detailed documentation of the abducted IDF soldier’s time as a prisoner in Gaza, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Sunday.

The new video shows Schalit and his five captors engaging in various daily activities.

In one scene, for example, Schalit is seen sitting on the floor being served a cup of coffee by a guard. In another, he is filmed eating and drinking – and looking merry — with the captors. What appears to be a sealed room has several mattresses on which Schalit and the men likely spent the nights.

In spite of media reports that Schalit had spent his entire five years in an underground bunker, according to Channel 2, this new video includes footage of Schalit in a lit area resembling a yard or balcony of some sort, where he is flipping meat on a grill. Here, too, he appears to be smiling, though he is pale and extremely thin.

In yet another scene, Schalit is seen relaxing and watching television.

Channel 2 reported that sources close to Schalit responded negatively to the release of the footage, calling it Hamas propaganda — “an act for the camera that took place after years during which Gilad lived in darkness, never going outside.”

According to Channel 2, last week Mohammed Deif, the head of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades — Hamas’ military wing — published the names of the five members of the organization who kept watch over Schalit during his captivity. This came on the heels of the death of the last remaining survivor among them, who was killed when the southern Gaza tunnel he was in collapsed. Each of the four others died under different circumstances after Schalit’s release in 2011 — as part of a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas. Schalit was returned to Israel in exchange for 1,027 terrorists, mostly Palestinian and Israeli-Arab, but also a Ukrainian, a Jordanian and a Syrian.

It is not clear if the five guards in the video were the only ones who held Schalit during his captivity, or whether he had been held in the same place throughout the five-year period, said Channel 2.

Watch the Hamas video below:

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