Over 1400 Palestinians have been reported killed in Israeli aerial bombardments on Gaza. The attacks have been condemned around the world., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Israeli soldier held 5 years to be swapped for 1,000 prisoners
By Aron Heller
and Dan Perry
Oct 11, 2011 10:06PM
JERUSALEM — In a much-anticipated prisoner exchange that could have broad implications, Israel and Hamas on Tuesday announced that an Israeli soldier abducted to Gaza five years ago would be swapped for about 1,000 Palestinians held by Israel and accused of militant activity.
Israel’s government approved the deal early Wednesday following a three-hour debate after both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal announced the agreement in televised comments.
Netanyahu said the captured soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit, would return home within days. Mashaal, portraying the agreement as a victory, said the Palestinian prisoners would be freed in two stages over two months.
Hamas and Israel are bitter enemies. Hamas has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel, killing hundreds, and Israel blockaded Gaza after Hamas seized power there in 2007, carrying out a large-scale invasion in 2009 to try to stop daily rocket attacks on Israel. More than 1,500 Gaza Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids and airstrikes since the soldier was captured.
The deal maintains a decades-long tradition of lopsided exchanges that have come under increasing criticism in Israel — and ends a period of tortured indecision by Israeli governments torn between securing the release of a single soldier and the risk that freed militants might return to violence that could cost many more lives.
“There is built-in tension between the desire to return a kidnapped soldier ... and the need to preserve the security of the citizens of Israel,” Netanyahu said. “I believe we reached the best deal that we can reach at this time, a stormy time in the Middle East.”
Schalit was captured in a cross-border raid in June 2006 by Palestinian militants who burrowed into Israel and dragged him into Gaza after killing two other soldiers.
Little has been known about his fate since then, and Hamas has outraged public opinion in Israel by refusing to even allow Red Cross visits, releasing only a brief audio recording and a videotaped statement early in his five years in captivity.
Schalit’s ordeal has become an obsession in Israel, where military service is mandatory and the public has identified with his family.
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