Occupied Jerusalem -
On the 11th anniversary of the "Wafa Al-Ahrar" deal, which falls today, Tuesday, the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was released in it in exchange for the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, continues to remain silent and keep away from the limelight.
Shalit, 36, who also holds French citizenship in addition to his Israeli citizenship, chose to settle in Tel Aviv, but away from the public life of hustle, but his personal life was more tumultuous as he experienced marriage 4 times since his release in 2011.
In June 2021, through a private party limited to the family, Shalit, who left military service and works as an employee in an Israeli bank, celebrated his marriage to a Jewish girl of Maghreb origins, Nitzan Shabat, a social worker.
Unlike previous years, the Israeli media and official spokesmen did not mention the life of former soldier Gilad Shalit, as on the anniversary of the exchange deal every year.
She also tried to stay away from the news about the new deal that has been negotiated since the Palestinian resistance captured two Israeli soldiers in the 2014 Gaza offensive.
Shalit left military service, got married 4 times, and works as an employee at the European Bank.
Too expensive
In an indication of the high price that Israel paid in the "Wafa Al-Ahrar" deal, Michael Milchan, a researcher at the Institute for Policies and Strategies at the Israeli "Reichman" University, writes that "the released prisoner became the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip."
Eleven years after the implementation of the "Shalit deal," Milchan said in an interview with Israel's Channel 12, "At the time of the negotiations, there was one prisoner sitting in prisons and knowing for sure that he would be released. It was Yahya Sinwar, the later leader of Hamas in Gaza." .
The reason for this is, the Israeli researcher says, "His brother, Muhammad al-Sinwar, was one of the kidnappers of Corporal Shalit, and he was among those who held him. Yahya al-Sinwar gained extraordinary strength until then, and later set his goal, which is the gradual leadership of Hamas in Gaza," adding that "the full leadership The Gazans today were at that time in the same cell and they were released in the deal."
It is inferred from official statistics issued by the Israeli army that successive Israeli governments conducted about 10 prisoner exchange deals between 1978 and 2011, during which thousands of Palestinian, Lebanese and Arab prisoners were liberated from Israeli prisons, in exchange for Israeli soldiers and individuals who were captured by the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance.
Political and security controversy
Shalit's experience of captivity with Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip, and the heavy price that Tel Aviv paid in exchange for his liberation from the "Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades", the military wing of Hamas, has become a matter of controversy at the political and security levels in Israel.
After the sharp criticism directed at Benjamin Netanyahu's government at the time of Shalit's release, the question of the price that Tel Aviv fears to pay in exchange for a future exchange deal with Hamas is also being asked again today.
The Israeli establishment seemed suspicious of an upcoming scenario in which it would have to pay a “heavy” price in exchange for the release of two civilians it considers alive, Abra Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, and the two soldiers it considers among the dead, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, while the Palestinian resistance keeps quiet. over their fate and keeps this as a bargaining chip to complete a new deal.
A freed prisoner in the "Wafa Al-Ahrar" deal, carried on his brother's shoulders and accompanied by his parents, upon receiving him at the Rafah Crossing (Al-Jazeera)
Netanyahu and the fear of a repeat of the exchange
In this context, the official Israeli channel “Kan” revealed last April, a secret document issued by the Israeli security services in August 2018, signed by all the leaders of the security and military services, in which they gave the green light to the Netanyahu government to move forward in completing a deal Prisoner exchange with Hamas.
The document came in light of an Egyptian mediation that led an attempt to conclude a deal with the resistance factions in the Gaza Strip, following a two-day military escalation, which Netanyahu thwarted, fearing the political price he would pay in the Knesset elections.
Especially after the criticism he was subjected to, accusing him of making "unprecedented concessions" to Hamas and paying the highest price between the exchange deals reached by the Israeli governments with the Palestinian, Arab and Lebanese resistance factions.
Soldiers or civilians, dead or alive?
Concerns about the "heavy price" also affected the behavior of the recent government coalition headed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, which in turn refrained from moving towards a new exchange deal with Hamas to free the Israeli detainees and prisoners in Gaza.
The position of the Lapid government was revealed after the videotaped video published by Hamas' military wing last June of the Israeli prisoner Hisham al-Sayed, as the discussion returned in the Israeli political and partisan scene about prisoner exchange deals and the price that Israel could pay in exchange for the return of its soldiers.
This controversy extended to the identity of the prisoner, and whether he was a soldier or a civilian, as well as the difference between the living prisoners and the bodies of the dead prisoners, which confirms the absence of any reference or legal framework for successive governments that can be adopted in exchange deals that are mainly subject to political considerations and the priorities of the government and leaders of the security services Israel, according to the National Security Research Institute of Tel Aviv University.
Amid the debate over the “prices of the deals” and its security, social and political repercussions on the Jewish community, its structure and composition, Israeli right-wing parties initiated an attempt to legislate the “Prisoners and Missing Persons” law, but without succeeding in approving it with the three readings in the Knesset.