In the wake of a TV drama screened on Channel Two regarding three IDF soldiers held in captivity, Noam and Aviva Shalit released a statement reminding the public and government that their son has been suffering in Hamas captivity in Gaza for nearly four years.
The TV show, named “The Captives,” deals with the return of three IDF soldiers, as a result of a complex prisoner exchange, after 17 years in enemy captivity.
“We wish to reiterate,” Shalit's parents stated, “that Gilad is not an imaginary captive. He is an Israeli soldier who was kidnapped nearly four years ago, and has been held in Hamas dungeons since then. No one has met with him – not his family, not his friends, not the Red Cross, nor anyone else other than his captors.”
“The suffering that we, his family, are undergoing because of Gilad’s absence is nothing compared to what he himself is undergoing. We continue to demand that the Government of Israel and the Prime Minister act for his immediate release.”
Deal Fell Through
It appeared a few months ago that an agreement for Gilad’s return was about to be concluded, involving the release of nearly 1,000 terrorist prisoners, including murderers, from Israeli prisons. However, the deal fell through not because of the high number of prisoners, nor because of the fact that some of them were murderers, but apparently because of two other points: Hamas refused Israel’s demand that some of the terrorists be deported outside of Gaza and Judea/Samaria, and Israel refused to include five-time murderer Marwan Barghouti on the list of prisoners to be freed.
Netanyahu: We Have Conditions
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke about Shalit at a session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last Tuesday. “We told the German mediator that we are willing to release prisoner in exchange for Gilad’s safe return home,” Netanyahu said, “but that it must be done in a way that would not repeat the mistakes of the Jibril and Tenenbaum deals, after which the released prisoners murdered Israelis.”
“Over 100 Israelis were murdered by or with the involvement of terrorists freed in the Jibril deal,” Netanyahu said. “And one of those released for Tenenbaum was involved in the murder of a rabbi who left seven orphans. We will not have the dangerous released prisoners going to places from where they can easily reach Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Raanana.”
The Jibril Deal
The Jibril Agreement of May 1985 took place between the Israeli government, headed at the time by Shimon Peres, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Israel released 1,150 terrorists from prison, in exchange for three Israeli prisoners captured during the Peace for Galilee war with Lebanon of 1982. Among the terrorists released by Israel were Kozo Okamoto, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and many others, who later helped initiate and lead the first violent 'intifada' that broke out in the late 1980’s.
The Tenenbaum Exchange
The Tenenbaum deal was effected in January 2004, and saw the release of 400 Palestinian terrorist prisoners and 35 others by the Ariel Sharon-led government in exchange for kidnapped Israeli civilian Elchanan Tenenbaum and the bodies of three soldiers who had been killed three years earlier by Hizbullah. Tenenbaum, who was kidnapped in late 2000 while visiting Dubai, admitted later that he had been in the midst of trying to conclude an illegal drug deal that would have netted him $200,000.