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Following are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks today at the closing ceremony of the Israeli Presidential Conference:
"Today, Hamas announced that it is standing by its refusal and has rejected the request of the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Gilad Shalit. And so I have an announcement as well: I have decided to change Israel's policy regarding the terrorists in Israeli prisons. While we are obligated to respect Israeli law, international law and international treaties, we are not required to go beyond them. Therefore, the extraordinary and exaggerated conditions for terrorists inside Israeli prisons – these conditions will end! We are taking a series of steps to change the prison conditions. While I will not detail them here, I would like to give one example: I have stopped the absurd procedure whereby terrorists in Israeli prisons for murdering innocents can sign up for academic studies. There will be no more master's degrees in murder or doctors of terrorism. This party is over.
I would like to commend the leaders of the US, France, the UK and Italy for demanding in recent days that Hamas release Gilad Shalit. They have done so before but they also issued an immediate demand that the ICRC be allowed to visit him.
I believe that if all of us, both in Israel and abroad, unite and continue to put moral, diplomatic and public pressure on Hamas, on a daily basis, we will advance Gilad Shalit's release until he returns home safe and sound."
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