As I write, friends and supporters of Gilad Shalit are protesting outside IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv, prior to tonight's cabinet meeting regarding a ceasefire, in order to appeal with decision-makers to include Shalit's release in any political agreement. If you have read this far, PLEASE continue reading and act NOW.
Noam and Aviva Shalit, Gilad's parents, gave a press conference this evening. Noam Shalit said any truce deal must include the release of Gilad from custody in Gaza. Aviva said the family continues to hope that he will return. The Shalits have anxiously followed the war in Gaza, they said, and are grateful for its impending close. The family expressed its fervent hope that the end of hostilities will also bring an end to Gilad's captivity.
Gilad Shalit was serving in the Armoured Corps when he was kidnapped from the IDF post near Kibbutz Kerem Shalom in southern Israel in a Hamas cross-border raid on June 25, 2006 that left two other soldiers dead and three wounded. Shalit has been held by Hamas in Gaza since.
The cabinet will hold a vote this evening to decide whether to enact a unilateral cease-fire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Noam and Aviva Shalit further state in a letter published today that if Israel fails to utilise this opportunity to return Gilad, "Israeli society may pay a far heavier price than what has been requested in the past: This will hurt the moral fortitude and fighting spirit of the IDF in the future. Such failure would seal Gilad's fate to remain buried in Gaza, captive all his life."
Tzipi Livni last week met the Red Cross President Jacob Kellenberger, who was visiting Israel as part of the Red Cross monitoring of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. She demanded that Gilad Shalit be visited by the Red Cross, as is the right of every prisoner around the world.
Hamas is denying Gilad Shalit this most basic human right. We do not know the answer to this simple question: where is Gilad Shalit?
Kellenberger agreed that Shalit's case was of great importance to the Red Cross, but said his group encountered "legal difficulties" in Hamas' definition as a terror group.
I urge everyone who is reading this to call/email/fax the Red Cross on the numbers below and demand to know: where is Gilad Shalit?
Postal address
International Federation of Red Cross
and Red Crescent Societies
P.O. Box 372
CH-1211 Geneva 19
Switzerland
Telephone: +41 22 730 42 22
Fax: +41 22 733 03 95
New York Delegation to the UN
International Federation
800 Second Avenue
Suite 355, 3rd floor
New York, NY 10017
USA
Telephone: +1 (212) 338 0161
Fax: +1 (212) 338 9832
or
Red Cross/Red Crescent Magazine
P.O. Box 372
Ch 1211
Geneva 19
Switzerland
Letters to the Editor:
Jean-François Berger
ICRC editor Rosemarie North
International Federation editor
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