The International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday called on militant Islamist group Hamas to prove that captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was still alive and allow his family to visit him.
The independent aid agency issued the unusual public appeal for information about the 24-year-old, who has been held since June 25, 2006.
"Because there has been no sign of life from Mr. Shalit for almost two years, the ICRC is now demanding that Hamas prove that he is alive," the ICRC said.
In a statement on its website, the ICRC also said it "constantly reminds Hamas of its obligation, under international humanitarian law, to preserve Gilad Shalit's life, to treat him humanely and to allow him regular and unrestricted contact with his family."
The ICRC also called on Israel to allow family visits for Palestinian from Gaza who are being held in Israel . Those visits were suspended in 2007, a year after Palestinian armed groups took Shalit hostage.
The ICRC said that more than 700 families from Gaza had been prevented from seeing detained relatives in the past four years.
"Under international humanitarian law, detainees held by Israel in relation to the armed conflict have a right to family visits. The International Committee of the Red Cross urges Israel, on humanitarian grounds, to lift the suspension of family visits for all detainees from Gaza," the statement said.
"The decision by the Israelis is of particular consequence for children, whose ties to their detained parents may become frayed or may even be severed," it added.
Weekly protestThe ICRC said mothers, wives and children held a weekly protest in front of its office in Gaza, holding photographs of their loved ones detained in Israel.
The number of days Shalit has been held is displayed on a black four-digit display atop an encampment near Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu home. On Friday, the number will read 1825.
Shalit's parents will spend the fifth anniversary of his kidnapping in a tent plastered with signs urging Israeli leaders to bring their son home.
"We will sit here for as long as we have the strength," the soldier's father, Noam Shalit, said at the street corner camp they have called home for the past year in a public campaign to press Netanyahu to agree to prisoner swap with Hamas.
Shalit, grabbed by militants who tunneled into an Israeli army border position on June 25, 2006 and took him into the Gaza Strip, has become a powerful symbol for Israelis, many of whom do compulsory military service and identify with his plight.
The fate of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel is also an emotional issue in the Gaza Strip, now controlled by Hamas, and the West Bank, where they are revered as heroes of the Palestinian cause.
Netanyahu has said he was committed to seeking Shalit's release. But his rightist government balks at meeting Hamas' demands to free hundreds of prisoners, among them men convicted of lethal attacks, calling it too great a security risk.
Shalit, who holds dual Israeli and French citizenship, was 19 at the time his capture. The last sign of life received from the soldier was a videotape released by his captors in September 2009 showing Shalit, pale and thin, pleading for his life.
He has not had any visits from the ICRC.
Suggesting that a military operation to try to free Shalit was impossible, retired general Gabi Ashkenazi said in May after he stepped down as Israeli military chief that Israel did not know where the soldier was being held in the Gaza Strip.
Activists in a campaign to win Shalit's release have voiced fears he could suffer the same fate as Ron Arad, an Israeli navigator downed over Lebanon in 1986 and captured by militants.
Israeli diplomatic and military efforts to free Arad failed and he is presumed to be dead, although in the absence of firm evidence, he is still listed as missing in action.
Calling for Gilad not to be forgotten, Shalit's brother disrupted Israel's main Independence Day ceremony last month, running onto the parade ground to press the government to step up efforts to secure his freedom.
At the Jerusalem protest tent next to the security gate of Netanyahu's official residence, people stop to offer words of encouragement to Shalit's parents. Some buy T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Gilad is still alive."
'We feel your pain'
A woman grips the hand of the soldier's mother Aviva, telling her: "We feel your pain and hope he comes home, soon." The site has become a stopping-off point for many foreign leaders visiting Israel.
A senior Hamas official in Gaza, Salah al-Bardaweel, told Reuters little progress had been made of late in German efforts to clinch a trade. He said Hamas felt the list of prisoners it wants freed was minimal "so there is no room for bargains."
About 5,500 Palestinians are in Israeli jails, including those convicted and those yet to face trial.
Israel has a history of carrying out uneven prisoner swaps. Nearly three years ago, it traded hundreds in its jails for the remains of two soldiers.
But Moshe Yaalon, a deputy prime minister, said on Israel Radio that bowing to Hamas' demands to release Palestinians responsible for deadly attacks would exact "a heavy price that would ultimately bring about ... the murder of many Israelis."
Noam Shalit holds both Netanyahu and his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who was prime minister in 2006, responsible for the failed efforts to free his son.
"I'm the father of a soldier whose country sent him on a mission five years ago and hasn't succeeded in bringing him home yet. They say the price is too high yet the government doesn't do enough to pressure Hamas to bring it down," he said.
