Shalit’s Father Offers To Take Son’s Place
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
JERUSALEM — The father of a captured Israeli soldier confronted one of his son’s captors in a dramatic joint radio appearance yesterday — pleading with the Hamas-linked militants to release his boy and take him instead.
The militant rejected the plea from Noam Shalit, saying the soldier will be freed only when Israel releases large numbers of Palestinian Arab prisoners.
Corporal Gilad Shalit, 20, was captured in a June 25 raid by militants who tunneled under the Gaza-Israel border and attacked an Israeli army post, killing two soldiers and taking Corporal Shalit with them.
Negotiations through Egyptian mediators have failed to win his freedom, with the two sides blaming each other for the breakdown.
Frustrated by the six-month stalemate, the elder Mr. Shalit said that if his son’s captors sought assurances, he was willing to offer himself up as collateral until a final deal could be secured.
“I, myself, am prepared to be guarantor for this and, if needed, I am prepared to travel to the Gaza Strip, and to stay with Hamas’s security forces until all of their demands are answered,” Mr. Shalit, 52, said. After the radio appearance, Mr. Shalit told the Associated Press: “If I could switch places with him, I would gladly do so.”
Mr. Shalit faced off against Abu Mujahid, the representative of the kidnappers, on “Radio All For Peace,” an independent station run by both Jews and Arabs in Israel.
Abu Mujahid told Mr. Shalit that he’d be welcome in Gaza only as an official negotiator. He assured Mr. Shalit that his son was well and was not being tortured.
Mr. Shalit spoke in Hebrew and Abu Mujahid in Arabic. Their words were translated to each other by the moderator.
The broadcast exchange came a day after Abu Mujahid gave the first official account on Corporal Shalit’s condition. The militant said the soldier was in good health and was being treated “according to Islamic standards.”
Abu Mujahid did not elaborate on the “Islamic standards” of treating a prisoner, and he did not furnish proof that the soldier was in good health. Israeli officials did not react to the report.
