Shalit in Israel after Middle East prisoner swap
Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit returns to Israel as the first of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners leave jail in a prisoner exchange deal. Channel 4 News analyses what the deal means.
Sergeant Shalit, who is 25, and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners crossed Israel’s borders in opposite directions earlier as part of a historic prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas.
He was reunited with his family after five years of captivity in the Gaza Strip. The first few hundred Palestinian prisoners were greeted with kisses and flags in Gaza and the West Bank as they returned from Israeli jails.
Sergeant Shalit was released in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, the first few hundred of whom will be released now and the remainder two months later.
I missed my family. I hope this deal will promote peace between Israel and Palestinians. Gilad Shalit
In an interview with Egyptian TV, conducted before he was transferred to Israel and broadcast after he went free, a gaunt Sergeant Shalit said: “I missed my family. I hope this deal will promote peace between Israel and Palestinians.”
He said he only found out a week ago that he would be released.
A military statement said Sergeant Shalit was in good health and the army released photographs of him, back in uniform and spectacles, saluting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
But witnesses said he felt nauseous and weak on his arrival in Israel and needed oxygen.
Israel's soul
"A moment of national catharsis - after a deal that might have seemed unthinkable," writes Felicity Spector, chief writer for Channel 4 News.
"The release of Gilad Shalit, the young soldier who has become known as 'everyone's son', has been universally welcomed across Israel. But there is also a deep sense of unease about the decision to free so many Palestinian prisoners in exchange.
"So why this deal, and why now? The answer ranges from the challenges thrown up by the Arab Spring, to the very core of Israel's soul."
Read more analysis on the deal that goes to the heart of Israel's soul here.
‘It’s still a difficult day’
Sergeant Shalit’s capture was a highly emotive issue between the two sides in the Middle East conflict, and despite the apparent lop-sidedness of the prisoner swap deal, it was approved with overwhelming support from the Israeli cabinet.
Opinion polls showed that the majority of the Israeli public also backed the deal, despite the fact that many of the prisoners going free were convicted of deadly attacks.
Shalit’s parents had waged a public campaign to urge the Israeli prime minister to do more to secure his release and had set up a protest tent near Netanyahu’s residence.
It’s still a difficult day, and the price was heavy. Binjamin Netanyahu
In a speech Binyamin Netanyahu said: “It’s still a difficult day, and the price was heavy.”
He warned released prisoners “who return to terror” that they are “taking their life in their hands”.
Sergeant Shalit was abducted in June 2006 by militants who tunnelled into Israel from the Gaza Strip and surprised his tank crew, killing two of his comrades. He has since been held incommunicado and was last seen looking pale and thin in a 2009 video shot by his captors.
Israel has freed 477 Palestinian prisoners, most of them to the Gaza Strip, where Hamas leaders greeted former prisoners piling off buses bearing Red Cross insignia.
Palestinians, awaiting the release of prisoners at a West Bank checkpoint, hurled rocks at Israeli soldiers, who responded with tear gas, after the military announced to the crowd over a loudspeaker that the group had been taken to another crossing.