Sitting and weeping at a dark corner with his hands tied to the wall, was how Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit looked like in a new cartoon movie, which Hamas satellite channel is airing these days.

"Mum, Mum, where this ordeal has come from?" the sergeant cried in the dusky solitary cell.

The camera tilted up and down and zoomed in and out at the soldier who was still wearing his military uniform.

The film continued, featuring a Palestinian boy dressed in green -- a reference to Hamas -- entering the cell and recognizing Shalit. "Ha Ha Ha! Poor Gilad. You have been here for three years and no one paid attention to you. You will rot here," the boy said.

Hamas captured the soldier in a cross-border raid in June 2006 and demanded Israel to free more than 1,000 Arab and Palestinian prisoners in return for him.

In the ensuing argument between Shalit and the boy, who said his father was being held by Israel, Shalit bargained for his release and begged the Palestinian cartoon character to free him, but the boy refused to be a "traitor."

"How can I set you free while my father, brother, neighbors and the people of my homeland are held in your jails," the boy said.

Israel has voiced several reservations about a list of 450 names Hamas insisted that the Jewish state release, making the indirect talks to reach a deal harder.

Later, Shalit himself laughed in irony when the boy suggested that he send a letter to Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu to explain his conditions.

Shalit, who held a French passport and was awarded an Italian one while in captivity, said he would leave Israel and go to one of the two countries to settle down if he was freed.

The three minutes and 10 seconds video is the latest controversial play the al-Aqsa satellite channel has been broadcasting. The criticism is that how Hamas used children in these videos.

Imad Zaqout, programs director at al-Aqsa channel, said the film tried to "revive Shalit's case which has international impact."

"We produced it comically to remind that there are 11,000 Palestinian prisoners that no one looks after, unlike Shalit who is always remembered in international circles," Zaqout told Xinhua.

Zaqout said the boy "represents the son of a prisoner and is a key element in the issue because it means that the children are missing their detained fathers."

He admitted that the West has often slammed his channel for involving children in such cases, rejecting that "the West is fed up by using children this way but is not fed up by the killing of the children in Gaza Strip," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2009)