Gilad Shalit

"Landep News"

Gilad Shalit

Israel and Hamas agreed on Tuesday to a prisoners swap which would make it possible for Israel to repatriate Gilad Shalit, abducted by the Hamas a few years ago. Te director of the Israeli internal security agency Shin Beth briefed the press on Wednesday on the deal closed on Tuesday with Egyptian mediation. He told the press that Israel has cut the best possible deal, and added that if there were a better one, Shin Beth would have chosen it.

According to Palestinian security the swap includes 479 people, among which the murderers of IDF soldiers Nachshon Wachsman, Ilan Sasportas, and Ilan Saadon.

Other Hamas insurgents that are considered by Israel terrorists will be allowed to go home in exchange for Shalit: the one who attacked a Tel Aviv-Jerusalem bus in 1989; the one who killed 10 Israelis in 2002 near Ramallah; a terrorist who brought the suicide bomber in a restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001, and a few perpetrators arrested in Ramallah in October 2000.

The terms of agreement, as they are reported by Israeli Haaretz newspaper, say that the prisoners who come from the West Bank will not be allowed to return to their territories but will be deported to the Gaza Strip. The release of Gilad Shalit is expected to happen within a week, when 479 Palestinians will also be released.

Of all these prisoners there are 96 from the West Bank who will be allowed to go home, 14 are East Jerusalem residents and six Israeli Arabs, who will be allowed to go home, and 131 from the Gaza Strip, who will also be released to go home.

Among the prisoners there are 27 women, all the women imprisoned in Israel for security offences. All of them will be released. Two of them will be deported to Gaza and Jordan, respectively.

230 prisoners will not be allowed to return home, and 40 of them will be deported abroad, while the rest will be deported to Gaza. 165 of them will be allowed to return to the West Bank in 10 to 25 years, while the others will never be allowed to return home.

Of all the 479, 279 were serving life sentences. Other 550 prisoners will be released by Israel at their choosing within two months. Israeli media says these 550 will be released as a gesture of gratitude to Egypt.

The deal has been discussed in Cairo with Egyptian and German mediation, and the release of the prisoners was brought to the attention of the Forum of Eight, the council that reunites the eight most important members of the Israeli cabinet, who held two important meetings on the topic over the past few days.

IDF Soldier Shalit

The negotiator for Israel, David Meidan, has been spending the last few days in Cairo, where he met the Hamas military representative.

The first meeting on the subject was held on Sunday, when the Forum of Eight consulted for eight hours, after which they refused to make any comments in the press. On Monday they were assembled again, and on Tuesday the decision was made in the wide cabinet.

Netanyahu said that if the deal were not approved, the entire effort to rescue Shalit would be worthless, and it could not be renewed for years to come.

The cabinet was motivated to bring the IDF soldier home because this Sunday Israel commemorates 25 years since air force navigator Ron Arad was taken prisoner, never to return home. Netanyahu did not want to take any chances on having to go through this situation again with Gilad Shalit.

The deal was cut under different circumstances than the attempts made previously: Israel seemed more cooperative, and reduced the number of West Bank offenders it wanted deported, while Hamas, without the backing of the Syrian government, was less interested in demanding the release of top terrorist prisoners.

Israel knows that even if they agreed to deport some of the terrorists, some of them will return to the West Bank, and it will take Shin Beth a lot of work to keep them under surveillance so that they may no revert to their old ways.

From a political perspective, both parties involved will have to gain. As soon as Gilad Shalit returns home the public approval of Benyamin Netanyahu is expected to go sky high, overshadowing the shortcomings of his neo-liberal-like economic policies, which brought many Israelis in the streets of the large cities of the country, protesting against an anti-social state that has less and less concern for the people.

Hamas on the other hand will step out of the shadow cast by president’s Abbas triumph at the United Nations General Assembly in September, where he demanded a state for the Palestinians to be recognized as a full member of the world body.

More than that, considering that Abbas’s victory is still on hold, since the final decision on the state bid has not been made yet by the UN Security Council, Hamas will have a very tangible victory in their hands, given that Israel was eager to release 1,000 Palestinians for the life of only one Israeli, which makes the deal all the more nobler on Israel’s part.

Analysts consider that even though Hamas will face criticism because the senior terrorists were not included in this deal and the number of released is still too small, the deal is a political salvation, considering that after years of enjoying support of the people, even in condition of total blockade on Gaza Strip, Hamas was beginning to lose approval, which is why this is their political salvation.

The family of the IDF soldier expressed gratitude that the state of Israel was giving them their son back. Gilad Shalit is an IDF soldier who was captured by Hamas militants in a cross-border raid on June 25, 2006. He has been held hostage in Gaza, in an unknown location.

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