After being carried by Hamas military officials and interviews in Egypt, Gilad Shalit has finally returned to Israel and more importantly has finally met his family for the first time in over five years and four months – 1940 days to be exact.
While the released prisoners in Gaza take part in celebrations and rallies, Shalit is receiving medical attention. During captivity, his injury during abduction was maltreated, he was denied glasses for his eyes, and he is suffering from vitamin D deficiency and malnutrition. He is not well – very pale, very thin, and felt nausea during a short helicopter ride to meet his family. Though his weak health, he is been released home to the care of his family.
Finally, Israel itself had a chance to see and photograph him. Here are some official pictures taken with his return home:
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At this point, personally I am trying to stay clear of the venom being spewed on the other side, on a day where the moderates speak as the extremists, and terror is being celebrated, honored and cherished. At these hours, today, I myself am once again ecstatically happy to be on the side that cherishes LIFE.
Tags: Gilad Shalit, hamas, Israel, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Prisoners, prisoners swap
Ori For Israel 
October 19, 2011 at 8:35 PM |
This enormous effort to raise his arm. This enormous effort to say I AM AN ISRAELI SOLDIER. An effort that seems to me to be very similar to this one: http://www.isracast.com/article.aspx?ID=766
October 19, 2011 at 8:52 PM |
There’s no doubt, Barbra, that Gilad Shalit seemed awful yesterday. Hamas boasts about his “humane treatment” of Gilad – i’m sure that if tomorrow morning Israel would announce it is treating every Hamas prisoners like Hamas treated Shalit, they would call it inhumane within a month or less. The lack of substantial food, the refusal to give him glasses for his eyes and the mistreatment of his injures are to name a few. Ridicoulsly enough, Hamas prisoners call their conditions in Israeli prisoners “like Auschwitz” – the condition that give them free time in the sunlight, the ability to get a degree, a cellphone and more. Their hatred and blindness is beyond absurd.
However, it’s hard for me, as a descendant to Holocaust survivors, to equate between the two as you so easily did. I’m not denying that the [declared] desired end-result for Jews as a group of Hamas is different, but in this instance, even though his care and very existence in captivity were all against all international laws and norms, breaking almost every geneva convention conceivable, I’m sorry but I have to disagree. There are differences. Mainly the one as opposed to the group. Again – I’m not saying his care was anything in the area of “good”.
October 20, 2011 at 1:06 AM
Of course there are substantial differences, but if I try to imagine how Gilad could feel during these 5 years, and when I see his thinness and weakness, I’m not sure it is so much different. And not different at all is the final purpose.
Anyway, what I meant by putting the “HaTikvah” of the survivors of Bergen Belsen is to show the great dignity of the survivors: the ones of Bergen Belsen are using their last energy to say: we are still human beings – jewish human beings, and Gilad is using his almost last energy to say: I’m still an israeli soldier (sorry for my poor english).
October 20, 2011 at 10:13 AM
OKay, if hope and endurance is what you meant, than yes, I agree, there are plenty of similarities.