Palestinians celebrate the release of prisoners in Ramallah. (Photo: Oren Ziv/ Activestills).
For more photos of Palestinains welcoming the released prisoners home check out the Activestills Flickr page.
Also, Noa Yachot and Dimi Reider are live blogging Gilad Shalit’s return to Israel for 972. Some recent highlights:
14:06 Meanwhile, it seems some families have decided to take matters into their own hands. The family of Shlomo Libman, killed near the settlement of Yitzhar in 1998, say they will pay $100,000 to anyone willing to assassinate Libman’s killers, released today as part of the prisoner swap. One of the killers has been deported to Gaza, the other will be deported to Turkey; the announcements were released in English, Hebrew, Arabic and Turkish.
13:43 Schalit is spending time with his family at the Tel Nof military base. They are soon to board a helicopter that will take them home. It’s unclear whether Schalit or his father Noam will speak to the press; we also know that the two main television channels, Channel Two and Channel Ten have signed an agreement promising to respect the family’s privacy and not try and scoop each other out for interviews once Schalit has reached home.
Earlier, Schalit was met by the IDF Chief of Staff, who saluted him, and by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who reportedly led him to his parents and said “I brought your boy back.” Netanyahu then addressed the media, stressing his empathy with the families of the victims of Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Shalit. He also attempted to resurrect trust between citizens and state, saying that when he served as a soldier himself, he always knew the state would bring him back if he was to be captured.
13:00 Channel 2: Schalit reaches Tel Nof base, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told him, “Bless your return to Israel, it’s so good to have you home,” before he reunited with his parents. Crowds of press and army folks are waiting outside the base. A stage is set up for a small press conference, with about three seats, a podium and a fighter plane (?) on the lawn behind it
12:48 IDF releases video of Schalit’s first encounter with IDF (Hebrew text at start of clip reads: “Tuesday, 18.10.11: Sergeant Major Gilad Shalit in first meeting with IDF officials”)
12:31 IDF has Schalit change into IDF uniform before flying to meet his parents, thereby militarizing what until now photographed as a legitimately emotional story. To quote Dahlia Scheindlin, “What a totally justified reason for delaying his reunion with his parents – so he can change into the uniform that symbolized the reason why he was kidnapped in the first place.”
what a moving photograph. “I was 1-day-old when my father was jailed”. and you can see how she looks just like her father. it makes me cry, the beauty i see in their faces. finally.
It was nice to see Shalit in a Gaza training top. He looked like a Ghazzawi.
My Israeli colleague burst into the office in an emotionally charged state. He is not eee but he said “we value life and they value death”. What a meme that is. “We must kill them” and then he searched from the English translation from the Hebrew for extrajudicial assassination. The war setting was what struck me. Terrorists, murder, dead children, future killing all got namechecked. It was quite the monologue . I guess Israelis like him will have real difficulties visualising peace. I wondered what he would say if I asked “how are you going to deal with mass nonviolent civil disobedience ? ” I just smiled .
In any civilized state, this is a crime. Will israel prosecute??
A repeat performance by released Israeli prisoner Shalit. The first time in 2004, it was the released Elhanan Tannebaum that said he had been treated well by his captors; from Manar TV:
Shalit Hopes Palestinian Prisoners Return Home, Says Hamas Treated Him Well
Local Editor
The Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit said in his first interview after his release that the long prison experience that he passed through made him hope that all the Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons get freed so that they would all return to their families.
In an interview with the Egyptian television before taking off to the occupied territories, Shalit said “I will be very happy if they all get freed, so that they could return to their families and to their land.”
The Israeli soldier who was captured by the Islamic Resistance Movement in Gaza in 2006 said that Hamas has treated him in a good way, knowing that the movement had been making efforts to complete an exchange deal with the Zionist part since his captivity.
Moreover, he responded to a question about his plans for the future saying that he “hoped that this swap deal would help achieve peace between the Israeli and the Palestinian side, and that it would strengthen cooperation between the two parts.”
Shalit further told the Egyptian interviewer that he hoped the released Palestinian prisoners wouldn’t go back to fighting Israel, knowing that he will be received by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and will reportedly put on the Israeli military suit as soon as he arrives to occupied Palestine.
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=31736&cid=23&fromval=1&frid=23&seccatid=18&s1=1