A JUBILANT crowd danced in the streets, waved Israeli flags, threw flowers in the air and popped champagne corks as Gilad Shalit finally arrived home last night to Mitzpe Hila in the hills of the western Galilee. Many wept with joy.
At the same time, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank hundreds of thousands spilled onto the streets to welcome home the 477 prisoners released by Israel in return for Sgt Shalit, who was seized by Palestinian militants more than five years ago on the Gaza border. Israel will free another 550 Palestinians in a couple of months.
A national holiday was declared in Gaza and Hamas deputy leader Moussa Abu Marzouk declared that additional soldiers might be seized to free the more than 5,000 Palestinians who remain in Israeli jails. “The rest of the prisoners must be released because if they are not released in a normal way they will be released in other ways,” he said.
Sgt Shalit was transferred from Gaza to Egypt early yesterday morning very close to the place at which he was seized in 2006 when his tank crew were taken by surprise by militants who had tunnelled under the border.
In an unexpected development, Sgt Shalit was interviewed by Egyptian state television before he crossed the border to Israel.
He looked thin and pale and was very emotional but still managed to answer in a coherent manner in Hebrew the questions put to him in English. He said he was concerned that he would remain in captivity for many more years but he was allowed to listen to the radio and Arabic television stations and a month ago suspected a deal was close.
He said he was informed of his impending release by his captors a week ago. Asked what he was most looking forward to, he answered: “My family and my friends and seeing and talking with people. The worst thing was having to do the same thing every day over and over.”
After crossing the border, he was given a medical examination, provided with a new army uniform and flown by helicopter to an air force base. There he was welcomed by Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defence minister Ehud Barak and Israel’s army chief, Lieut Gen Benny Gantz, before an emotional reunion with his immediate family.
Doctors ruled that he was fit enough to fly home even though he reportedly fainted on the flight to the base.
Addressing the huge crowd that had come out to welcome the soldier home, Noam Shalit said his son was suffering from minor shrapnel wounds and a lack of exposure to sunlight during his captivity.
He said, without giving details, that his son was treated harshly during the first few years of captivity but conditions had improved in the last few years.
Mr Netanyahu said Israel was united in joy and pain, and he made it clear the released militants would be targeted if they returned to violence.
“Any terrorist who resumes terror activities – on their head be it.”
Yesterday’s prisoner swap will undoubtedly boost the standing of Hamas at the expense of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, and may make it even more difficult to restart the deadlocked Middle East peace process.
Although the overwhelming majority of Israelis supported the deal, in previous prisoner swaps more than half of the released Palestinian detainees resumed militant activity.
In Gaza city, a densely packed sprawl of low-rise concrete on the Mediterranean coast in sight of Israel, tens of thousands rallied before a stage decorated with a mural bearing portraits of top militants who were not released.
“We will not forget you,” stated the slogan.
Yehya al-Sinwar, a top Hamas security strategist who spent 23 years in jail and is now tipped for a top post in the Hamas leadership, was cheered by the rally and mobbed on stage.
A wall painting lampooned Israeli Mr Netanyahu, depicting him with his face ground into the dirt by the boot of a gunman, signing a paper with the words “swap deal”.