Freed Israeli soldier Shalit reunites with family

Gilad Shalit (middle) with father and Isreali Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left)

Freed Israeli soldier Shalit reunites with family

Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit returned to Israel on Tuesday morning, looking weak but apparently healthy, after five years of captivity in the Gaza Strip.

His release by the militant Palestinian group Hamas launched a prisoner swap that ultimately will include the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. A total of 477 prisoners were freed on Tuesday, after Shalit was returned to Israel.

Shalit, now 25, was 19 years old when he was seized by Hamas militants who had tunneled under the border between Gaza and Israel.

The campaign to free him drew support from across Israel, despite anguish over the decision to release hundreds of Palestinians convicted of planning or carrying out attacks against Israeli civilians.

“Gilad Shalit has returned to his country, his homeland and his family,” Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, an Israeli army spokesman, said after the young soldier’s release. “For over five years we have been . . . with Gilad Shalit. Today, Gilad Shalit is with us.”

Shalit was reportedly taken by Hamas officials from Gaza into Egypt, then turned over to Israeli officials and taken across the border. He was examined by doctors and given a chance to speak to relatives by telephone; at some point, he changed out of the plaid shirt he had been wearing and into an Israeli army uniform, which hung loosely on his thin frame.

He was flown by military helicopter to the air base in central Israel, where he was reunited with his family just after 1 p.m. local time.

Heavy price

“How good that you have returned home,” Netanyahu told Shalit after embracing him, according to Israeli media accounts.

Netanyahu told reporters that the case of the abducted soldier was among the toughest he inherited when he assumed office 2 1 / 2 years ago. He said Israel had paid a “heavy price” to secure Shalit’s release.

“On this day,” Netanyahu said, “all of us are united in happiness and pain.”
The Prime Minister said the prisoner exchange was “among the most difficult” decisions he’s ever made.

Triumphant reception

While Israeli officials offered a subdued homecoming ceremony for Shalit, reflecting their concern about the Palestinian militants who were being freed, Hamas leaders organized a triumphant reception for those former prisoners.

The first busloads of released Palestinians, including women, crossed the border into Egypt around the same time Shalit was handed over to the Israelis. The Palestinians were taken to Gaza and the West Bank, where jubilant crowds awaited them, and to a few other locations.

“The issue of prisoners has always been in our minds and our hearts,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the prisoners during a crowded and jubilant welcoming ceremony.

Hamas leaders have billed the swap as a failure for Israel and have said it will embolden the movement’s will to end what it calls the occupation of Palestinian land. Israeli leaders have said they reached the best deal they could.

Promotion

In his first interview after release, Shalit told an Egyptian television reporter that he would be very happy if remaining Palestinians held in Israeli prisons were freed and expressed the hope that the deal would lead to peace and support cooperation between both sides.

A corporal when abducted, Shalit was promoted twice while in custody and again, to sergeant major, on the eve of his release.

Washington Post/Agency reports/Ekata