Israel was impatiently awaiting news on Wednesday about when captive soldier Gilad Shalit would return home, a day after the Jewish state inked a deal with Hamas that will see 1,000 Palestinians freed. The deal, which was signed late on Tuesday, is expected to get under way in the coming days, with the initial release of some 450 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the now 25-year-old soldier. A second tranche of 550 prisoners will be released within two months.
Top officials from Israel, Egypt and the Hamas movement have all said the process would begin within days, but so far there have been no specific details on the timing or the location of the swap. Israel’s negotiator David Meidan said he was due in Egypt soon to finalise details of Shalit’s return home. “The mission is not complete yet; it will be when Gilad returns home. Let’s hope that will be in a matter of days,” he said on Wednesday at the start of a working meeting with President Shimon Peres. “This is a very complex event; this whole deal is complicated but we can say that the difficult part of it is behind us.”
If the accord is implemented, it will end an ordeal that has lasted more than five years for the young soldier, who has become a national icon in Israel since his capture by Gaza-based militants in June 2006. It will also be the first time in 26 years that a captured Israeli soldier has been returned to the Jewish state alive. And it will be a major political coup for Gaza’s Hamas rulers, particularly vis-a-vis the Ramallah-based leadership of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. The agreement, which won the backing of Israel’s top military and defence chiefs, was approved by the government early on Wednesday, although Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and two other ministers voted against it.
