The father of captured young Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit on Sunday slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying failure to free him amounted to a death sentence. A day after Israel marked exactly five years since Gaza-based militants seized him in a cross-border raid, Noam Shalit vowed to step up a public campaign to pressure Netanyahu to accept a prisoner swap deal with his Palestinian captors.
Netanyahu “does not have a mandate to sentence Gilad to death,” Shalit said, speaking at a press conference at the protest tent in which the family lives outside Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem. “Netanyahu and his advisers, through some unexplainable weakness, are afraid to take a decision with risks, even though these are measured risks,” he said, referring to a prisoner exchange.
Gilad Shalit was 19 when he was captured on June 25, 2006 by three armed groups, including the Islamist movement Hamas, and has been held ever since at a secret location in the Gaza Strip.
