Shalit Freed as Hundreds of Palestinian Prisoners Return Home
Looking dazed, a thin and pale Gilad Shalit emerged from a pickup truck Tuesday under the escort of his Hamas captors and the Egyptian mediators who helped arrange the Israeli tank crewman's release after more than five years in captivity.
Freed in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, an ashen-faced Shalit struggled to breathe in an interview with Egyptian TV minutes after his release, saying that he had feared he would remain in captivity for "many more years." He said he was "very excited" to be headed home and that he missed his family and friends.
A short while later, the 25-year-old soldier was transferred to Israel, said Israeli army spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, who told a news conference: "Today, Gilad Shalit is with us."
In the first public sighting of Shalit since he was captured, he appeared thin with dark circles around his eyes in the brief video clip and interview broadcast on Egyptian TV. Wearing a black baseball cap and gray shirt, Shalit was taken from a pickup truck and escorted by a contingent of Egyptian officials and masked Hamas gunmen who had whisked him across the border.
The deal, the most lopsided prisoner swap in Israeli history, caps a five-and-a-half-year saga that has seen multiple Israeli military offensives in Gaza, an Israeli blockade on the territory and numerous rounds of failed negotiations.
The Palestinian prisoners, who included dozens of people who had been serving life sentences for deadly attacks, were returning to heroes' welcomes, while dozens of people prepared a joyous homecoming in Shalit's tiny hometown in northern Israel.
"Until we see him, we are following with concern and anticipation," Shalit's father, Noam, told Israel Radio from an air base inside Israel where his family was waiting to reunite with him.
The swap got under way early Tuesday as Hamas moved Shalit across Gaza's border with Egypt, while Israel simultaneously began freeing the Palestinian prisoners. At midmorning, Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, said his group was no longer holding the soldier.
Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV reported that a high-level Hamas delegation arrived on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza to hand over Shalit and to greet the returning prisoners.
In an elaborate operation, Shalit was then taken across Egypt's border into Israel and was being flown to the Tel Nof air base in central Israel to be reunited with his family.
Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was at the air force base with Shalit's family, telling them "Gilad will be returning to you shortly," according to a statement from his office.
Before dawn, convoys of white vans and trucks transported hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to the locations in the West Bank and on the Israel-Egypt border where they were to be freed.
More than 200,000 people gathered in Gaza City for a mass rally to celebrate the return of prisoners freed.
"More than 200,000 people have gathered now at the Katiba (in Gaza City) to participate in the main festival welcoming the prisoners," one of the Hamas officials involved in organizing the welcome rally said.
Ismail Haniya, Gaza's Hamas prime minister was expected to address the rally as well as Yehia Sinwar, a senior leader with Hamas's armed wing who was among those released on Tuesday.
In Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, thousands of excited family members gathered to welcome the 296 newly-released prisoner’s home, many of whom could be seen wearing green Hamas sashes and wiping tears from their eyes.
Similar scenes of jubilation were occurring across the West Bank, with many thousands of people packing into the city of Ramallah to welcome 117 detainees home, cheering and waving flags as they got off four buses outside the Muqataa presidential compound.
Armed Hamas security guards were deployed on rooftops overlooking the field.
In the West Bank, located on the opposite side of Israel, about 200 relatives of prisoners waited at a West Bank checkpoint as the exchange unfolded.
The exchange, negotiated through Egyptian mediators because Israel and Hamas will not talk directly to each other, is going ahead despite criticism and court appeals in Israel against the release of the prisoners. Nearly 300 of them were serving lengthy sentences for involvement in deadly attacks.
The exchange involves a delicate series of staged releases, each one triggering the next. The Red Cross and Egyptian officials are involved in facilitating the movement of prisoners.
In Gaza, Hamas militants deployed in force along the road leading into Egypt where Shalit was taken. Shortly thereafter, hundreds of returning Palestinians were slated to enter Gaza on the same road.
When Tuesday's exchange is complete, 477 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, including 27 women, will have been released, several of them after decades behind bars.
More than 200 prisoners, originally from the West Bank, will instead be sent to the fenced-off Gaza Strip. And some 40 prisoners will be deported to Syria, Qatar, Turkey and Jordan, Palestinian officials said. Another 550 prisoners are slated to be released in two months.
13 years
but we do...look what we have done for quntar.
of course you refer to missing soldiers from aoun era.
i heard a lot of rumors about that but never evidence.
13 years
I think the real issue here is that there is no Government in Lebanon that actually puts its ideology on the table, and that the population agrees on that ideology.
Because the population is so fragmented, the government is fragmented, Lebanon as a Government and Lebanon as the people are divided, that is why unless there is a major demographic change / or a crazy dictator in Lebanon, we will never be able to negotiate anything properly.
13 years
Today Israel released 1027 prisoners for 1 single soldier.
This is one of those days I'm proud to be a Jew and an Israeli.
The Hamas can claim for victory, the Palestinian can celebrate but the victory of the spirit is ours not yours. It has no matter how you will color it the fact is that the most of the prisoners are simple plane terrorists and murderers.
Slaughtering a baby by smashing her head against a rock doesn't make Sameer Kuntar a freedom fighter. blowing up coffee houses or school buses you can't be considered a big heroic action (unless when casualties are Jews then any one even a baby can be considered as s soldier).
This is specially for you Ahbal Net. it just shows you what means human life for us. In a million of years your friends the Syrian and Iranian won't reach it no matter how big is your mouth and how much your brain is washed with hate. Time to climb down from trees and live your caves and respect human lives.
13 years
the filthy halucinatory zionist information war department does not hide it's presence here.
ysou can spill your slime here as much as you want, but we all know you are scared like shit.
and stil you are not scared as you shoud be
13 years
Ahbal AMel, yes we scare, we all scare for our lives and we showed it today what means human values for us. but as you see, we have a long history with "Lovers" like you. and it just make us thinking what would have happen to us and how many of us would have been left alive if Arabs won their wars against Israel since 1948. Think that what you are doing one to the other in the Arabian countries or what the corrupted governments doing to their own people would be a peace of cake comparing to our destiny if we were falling in your hands.
But nevertheless we did not give up peace.
Peace will come between Arabs to Jews when the Arab mother will love her children more than she hates Jews.
The day that Arabs will lay down their weapons there will be peace,
The day Israel will lay down its weapons there will be no Israel.
We recommend you to choose 1st option.
13 years
The israelis are idiots. This will encourage Hamas to capture more israeli soldiers.
Anyway. Not our business.
13 years
I wonder why the authors of this article AFP? didnt comment on how the Palestinian prisoners looked after being released from the dungeons and isolatory cells? They too were pale from being kidnapped by israel. Israel loves to pretend they are civilized when in reality they locked even female prisoners in small cells with rats and cockroaces in them. Ahmad saadats cell even had snakes in it.
13 years
Danny B, your so boring with your propaganda and zionist hate and extremism. Cant wait to celebrate your expulsion from the middle east which is near. Your getting weaker and weaker every day. You launched wars to release this soldier and couldnt and then at the end you ended up agreeing to what the demands were just like in lebanon. You know you lost, thats why you posted that pathetic comment trying to convince yourself.
13 years
Here is the detail of the POLITICAL HYPOCRISY of this event:
1-Ntanyahu...using this as pre election Campaign....so he accepted the deal which he rejected years ago
2-Hamas worked on the deal to humiliate Abu Abbas...and the Ramallah government....where is Marwan Barghouti ???
3-Natanyahu....did not use his previous friend Mubarak as a mediator,....but now he accepted the New Egyptian Authorities to let them bath in a World public relation and get credit.
4-This exchange or bargaining could have been done years ago but no one wanted it as it is good political blackmail tool....
Figure out what goes on in Lebanon politics.....Much more
13 years
did you see post from "the patriot"?
first typical zionist rethoric and than correcting himself by "not our business"
13 years
@habal
Please stop convincing us that you're an idiot! I swear that we've all understood that already!
13 years
I bet that everyone of those released prisoners was treated in a very humane way in Israeli jails, despite the fact that they had commited inhumane acts against other human beings. Unlike what happens to prisoners in "Shakika Suria" where they have mastered the Art of Torturing and Killing their own jailed Citizens, even under age Children. Look at what they had done to us during the Lebanese Civil War, how many of us they had tortured and killed. And how many of our Dear Mothers still, until today, crying for their missing Sons and Daughters in Syrian jails. Few of my friends who were kidnapped by the Syrian "Shabbiha" SOB's, have counted their nightmerish stories, and they are the lucky ones who were able to get out. Why doesn't the Christian TRAITOR, Mr. CLAOUN, do something about that by pleading their case with his buddy the Tyrant Assad. I guess he is too busy filling up his pockets, and his Sheep too.
13 years
@Dany B.
No... Dont be proud to be an Israeli... yet.
Unless Israelis stop their imperialistic policies, stop building settlements, get the hell out of east jerusalem, give an honorable state to palestinians, they are going to be hit hard. real hard.... and not by the looser arabs or iranians... But by the law of Karma.
Last time jews went bezerk, they hanged Jesus Christ. They got punished for this 2000yrs later by that criminal Adolf Hitler.
This time they are stealing palestinian lands, and dishonoring a whole people.... I wonder what their punishment will be.... and when...
Forget Syria. Forget Iran. These a..holes dont give a damn about the palestinian cause. they use Israel to forward their own dictatorial objectives. Stop gloating, and think what your country can do to return their rights to the palestinians.
Failing that, jewish lobby or not, you or your children will encounter biiiig biiiig problems... This is called the law of Karma... google it, you'll understand.
13 years
@jabalamel: Rumors? Everyone knows that when the Syrians went in and beat Aoun's forces at the end of the war, many were taken prisoner as happens in warfare. Aoun used to talk about the issue all the time in exile and then when he returned as well, one of the first things he mentioned was that the issue was still unsolved between Lebanon and Syria.
But now he's too drunk with power and doesn't care about his own soldiers any more. They fought for his cause in an impossible situation while he ran with his tail between his legs to France, only to return later and serve the same people that he attacked for years from abroad and fought with during the war.
It's obvious that Aoun will do and say anything to get as much power as possible and his dream is to be president one day, hopefully that day never comes. The most disgusting people are those that completely sell out all their values for material and political gain.
13 years
I prefer they excuted him so Israel do the same to these 1027 worthless prisoners
13 years
A country that values this much every one of its citizens is very hard to defeat!
13 years
1 Israeli = 1,000 Arab Palestinians. I am not sure if this is something to be proud of or ashamed.
13 years
I don't understand. Why are the March 14 supporters speaking positively of Israel? I used to consider myself March 14 supporter because I am against Hezbollah's evil intentions in Lebanon by extending Iran and Israel's evil hand as well as the kalb Bashar al Assad. But Israel is an evil entity as well. The Palestinians are our brothers, and if we don't agree on that, than we Arabs will continue to kill each other and be ruled by oppressive tyrants. I know Palestinians that support our cause, that hate Assad and Nasrallah, and yet we show sympathy to the evil zionist occupiers of the West Bank and the chokers of Gaza? If we were against Syria during their occupation, we were surely against Israel when they occupied the south. Two evil occupiers that we kicked out. Inshallah there will be peace in the region, but we have to support our Palestinian brothers, because inshallah they will help us to.
13 years
its about time we get lebanese prisoners from syria... oh wait, March 8 doesnt care about them, to them they dont exist.. sorry i said anything, carry on..
13 years
Nasrallah is against Palestinians having Lebanese citizenship because they are Sunni and that would alter the demographics drastically. Hariri supports it, but for the same reason. I support it because they are our Arab brothers living like animals because they are of a different "nationality". What is the difference between a Christian Palestinian and a Christian Lebanese? Or a Muslim Lebanese and a Christian Palestinian? There is none. Klna 3arab. And also, a problem of an Arab should be our problem, whether it be the many Palestinians jailed in Isra2il, a Syrian being shot in Homs because he is against Bashar, or the Lebanese in the Syrian jails because they were against the brutal Syrian occupation of the North. The syrian government, btw, does not represent the people. If all the Arabs realized this, we will not have to deal with Israel, Bashar al Assad, Mubarak, or Gaddafis ever again. But it seems like we are realizing this anyway.
13 years
And the Hizabelkizb propaganda machine is at it again! The need to comment on every article with great information and intelligent remarks. Glad to see some prisoners are free, can't stop thinking about ours in Syrian jails. Kuntaar is a criminal, only criminals want to free child killers....
We must free need to get our troops backs. Israel and the Palestinians are not problem.
13 years
Asaf, we did not place the Palestinians in the ghetto, your nation did. So take them back, we certainly don't want them. They have done too much damage to our little proud Lebanon. The Israeli Palestinian conflict is the root cause of our problems in Lebanon. And now Iran has infected with the help of the Syrian criminals south Lebanon with massive cancer, that is destroying our democracy
If only Lebanon gave its missing the same amount of dedication as the Israelis give to theirs...