The Palestinian Hamas Resistance movement on Wednesday said the fate of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was known only to those holding him, one day after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the soldier was “fine.”
Osama al-Muzaini, a senior Hamas official responsible for talks over the soldier’s release, said Mubarak’s remarks were “wishful thinking,” in a statement published by the Safa agency, a news service close to Hamas.

“No one knows if (Gilad) Shalit is alive or dead after the war except for the closed circle responsible for him,” Muzaini said, referring to the devastating Israeli offensive on Gaza at the turn of the year.

On Tuesday Mubarak told journalists in Cairo after he met Israeli President Shimon Peres that the Israeli conscript was in good health more than three years after his capture.