Jerusalem, October 18: The first convoy of Palestinians to be freed by Israel under a landmark prisoner swap, in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit, left prison early Tuesday heading for the West Bank, public radio reported.
The 96 freed Palestinians were to be followed by three other convoys which would soon be heading to the Kerem Shalom Israeli army post which lies near the Israel-Gaza border, the radio report added.
In total 477 Palestinian detainees are due to be released on Tuesday.
The first prisoners freed from Ketziot prison were had their hands and feet manacled.
More than 1,000 police officers were deployed along the convoy’s route, the radio said.
Officials from the Egyptian consulate in Israel were present as the convoys left and checked the identity of the prisoners freed under a deal concluded with Egypt’s involvement between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
How the Campaign took off :
The longest media campaign in recent Israeli history, that included mass marches, a protest tent encampment and a text messaging mission, is coming to an end with the expected return of Gilad Shalit on Tuesday.
The Shalit family conducted a low-key campaign, mainly on the international front: In March 2007, when the Palestinian unity government was announced, Noam Shalit, Gilad’s father, asked the head of the Hamas political bureau, Khaled Meshal, to complete the prisoner-exchange negotiations. Since Gilad holds dual Israeli and French citizenship, his family also sought assistance from President Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2008 Gilad’s parents, Aviva and Noam Shalit, took part in a march held on his behalf in London.
The turning point in the public campaign, however, seemed to come in July 2008, with the return to Israel of the remains of abducted soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. From that point on the Shalits were alone on the battlefield, despite continued support from the Regev and Goldwasser families and from the public. A few months later the Shalits made the decision to change their strategy, and brought in the Rimon Cohen Sheinkman public relations and strategic consulting firm. The organization to free Gilad Shalit launched a campaign to mark 1,000 days since his abduction that included the use of an audiotape of his voice and the creation of a typeface based on his handwriting. About two weeks before that day, in early March 2009, the family erected their protest tent in the capital in an effort to pressure then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to close a deal to bring Gilad home before the imminent end of his term.
Tami Sheinkman remained by the Shalits’ side and in effect became the family’s PR agent. Shimshon Liebman, head of the campaign to free Gilad, directed the various activities on his behalf, primarily through the adjunct organization he established, “the army of Gilad’s friends.”
In March 2010 a new campaign was launched that included a television spot in which the image of Gilad’s face morphed into that of the missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad. In April of that year thousands of Israelis wore white in solidarity with the campaign for Gilad’s release.
The public protest reached its peak two months later, when the Shalits and thousands of supporters set off on foot from the family home in Mitzpeh Hila, in the Western Galilee, to the Prime Minister’s Residence in the capital. Over the course of the 12-day march, an estimated 200,000 people joined in. There was some public criticism over media coverage of the event: The Maariv daily, for example, distributed yellow ribbons in support of the release efforts.
In addition to the public actions the Shalits, the activists and other supporters also held dozens of meetings with journalists and media executives, with current and former military officials and with Knesset members and other political figures, all in an effort to recruit support for a prisoner exchange agreement. Some of these efforts touched on linguistic issues: Sheinkman and her colleagues tried to find out whether there was a way to avoid having the future prisoner exchange known as the “Shalit deal,” in an attempt to prevent the family from being associated with any resultant security issues.
The protests continued at full force over the past year, with businessman Kobi Sidi’s initiative to get everyone in Israel to stop whatever they were doing at 11 A.M. on March 15 in a show of solidarity for Gilad. Other activities targeted Hamas, such as blocking roads carrying money, fuel and materials to the Gaza Strip.
Yoel Marshak, head of the Kibbutz Movement’s task force and a prominent figure in the public campaign for Shalit’s release, is convinced that the various events helped bring about the agreement that will end Gilad’s captivity on Tuesday.
“Our public activities undoubtedly helped. I know how much the family’s sitting across from Bibi’s home, and standing outside the weekly cabinet meetings, troubled him and his fellow cabinet ministers,” Marshak said. “It drove home that there are people who cannot accept the situation, that the prime minister holds the key and must do what they ask.”
The real change in the character of the campaign seemed to happen during the traditional Independence Day torchlighting ceremony in May, when Gilad’s brother Yoel Shalit and Yoel’s girlfriend Yaara Winkler burst onto the stage to protest “the government’s impotence” in obtaining Gilad’s freedom. That set off a public debate over the end of the Shalits’ quiet public image. One month later, to mark five years since the abduction dozens of actors, singers and artists were each filmed spending an hour in a solitary confinement cell meant to resemble Gilad’s.
The Shalits later called on Israelis to “vote to save Gilad” by sending a text message, and during the same month Aviva, Noam and Yoel Shalit, together with Winkler, chained themselves to the fence outside Netanyahu’s home.
Going beyond
Reut, a nonprofit association of army reservists that was created as the result of a meeting at the Shalits’ protest tent, took it upon itself to “go beyond rallies and protests.” In the past two months its members on three occasions tried to delay or prevent Palestinian security prisoners from receiving visitors. Last Tuesday morning, hours before the exchange deal was announced, they were successful in keeping a bus carrying visitors from reaching Shita Prison in northern Israel where many security prisoners are held.
“If we had a part in a fraction of the pressure that led to the prime minister’s decision to go for a deal, we definitely think we accomplished something,” Reut chairman Col. (res. ) Moshe Fisher said.
In the five and a half years since his abduction thousands of people acted independently or in response to the extensive, widely covered public relations campaign. At first, members of two organizations created to fight for Shalit’s release staged regular Friday demonstrations outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem.
Emotions were running high inside Israel, where Shalit has enormous symbolic importance, with many overjoyed he is returning home, but others angered that so many Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis will be freed.
The deal between Israel and its bitter Hamas enemy, is the highest price ever paid by the Jewish state for one person and, if all goes to plan, it will be the first time in 26 years that a captured soldier has been returned to the Jewish state alive.
Shalit was a 19-year-old corporal on duty along the Gaza border when he was captured on June 25 2006 by militants from three Gaza-based groups, including Hamas.
Three days after he was snatched, Israel launched a massive military operation against Gaza in a bid to secure his release, which lasted five months and left more than 400 Palestinians dead.
Shalit was expected to be transferred Tuesday morning from the Gaza Strip to the Egyptian Sinai peninsula before travelling on to Israel.
He will be met at the Tel Nof airbase in southern Israel by Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, before being reunited with his family.