A new campaign to free kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit features stickers on trucks entering Gaza with the slogan that Arabs also “are hostage” to Hamas authorities. Activists campaigning for Shalit's release also appealed to Arab Knesset Members to exert pressure on Hamas to free the soldier just as they did two weeks ago to extricate a Bedouin who entered Gaza and was trapped there.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in Russia on Monday that Israel will not change its last offer to free approximately 1,000 terrorists in exchange for Shalit. He asked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to inform Hamas it will not agree to add more terrorists to the list that Hamas has rejected.
Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas and allied terrorists on June 25, 2006, and Hamas has since rejected numerous offers from Israel for his safe return. His physical condition is not known. Foreign mediators have felt assured that he is in good physical health although his emotional state is also not known.
Activists for freeing Shalit have previously tried to pressure Israel to halt visits by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to jailed terrorists unless Hamas offers the same right, as required by the Geneva Convention.
Shalit has sometimes been described as the “last Jew in Gaza' following the Israeli expulsion of all Jewish residents of the area in 2005. His exact whereabouts are not known, but one Arab media source has suggested that the British journalist arrested earlier this week by Hamas was trying to locate the soldier. The journalist, Paul Martin, was taken into custody after appearing at a courthouse where a trial was held for an alleged collaborator with Israel.