Hamas video shows Shalit preparing for release
Islamists publish propaganda images a day after 7th anniversary of soldier's kidnapping; assassinated terror leader Jabari also seen in clip
A day after the seventh anniversary of Gilad Shalit’s kidnapping, Hamas released a video Wednesday showing new images of the captured soldier tying his shoes and buttoning his shirt as he prepared for his return to Israel in 2011.
Shalit is also shown being led by the then-head of Hamas’s military wing, Ahmed Jabari, on his way out of Gaza. Killed in an Israeli airstrike that marked the onset of Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, Jabari had long topped Israel’s most-wanted list. Israel blamed him for a string of attacks, including the capture of Shalit.
The slick 38-second video feature shows pictures of other kidnapped IDF soldiers, including the late Nachshon Wachsman, and closes with the words “We’ve begun toward the goal — and we will reach the end,” in both Hebrew and Arabic.
Shalit, who was serving in the IDF’s Armored Corps, was kidnapped in 2006 by a team of terrorists from Hamas and two other organizations who tunneled into Israel under the Gaza border and killed two IDF soldiers in their attack.
Shalit’s release in 2011 came at a heavy cost. After years of negotiations, and heavy public pressure to release him, Israel struck a deal with Hamas to free Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners, many of them convicted terrorists responsible for killing Israelis.
Since his release, Shalit has been writing a regular sports column in the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth and getting used to life as a free man.
In May, a Hamas military spokesman said that the kidnapping of IDF soldiers is at the heart of Palestinian culture, responding to a speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in which Abbas called such abductions alien to Palestinian norms.
“Those who refuse to abduct Zionist soldiers renounce the pain and suffering of thousands of prisoners yearning for freedom,” wrote Abu-Ubaida, a spokesman for the Izz ad-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, on his Facebook page, pushing back against Abbas’s speech.
“Operations to capture enemy soldiers and trade them for our heroic prisoners are at the heart of our people’s culture, and are a source of pride for them and their resistance,” Abu-Ubaida added.
Elhanan Miller contributed to this report.