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Noam Shalit - 'Hard-hitting questions'
Photo: AP
Amos Gilad - Rafah will remain closed
Photo: Gil Yohanan
Photo: AP
Gilad Shalit
Photo: AP

Shalit meets Amos Gilad, says 'actions more important than sentiments'

Following meeting with Defense Ministry official under court orders, Noam Shalit says family more concerned with State's actions than its concern for his son. Gaza crossings remain closed, for now

The head of the Defense Ministry's Security-Diplomatic Bureau, Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad (res), met with Noam Shalit, father of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, late on Sunday evening under orders from the High Court of Justice. The court ordered the meeting to resolve their points of contention.  

 

"Sentiments are less important to us than actions," said Shalit after the meeting. He is expected to hand over an update on the family's position to the court at 10:00 am Monday morning. The State will then be given until 11:00 to reply, after which the court will determine how to proceed.

 

In any event, the court ruled, Gaza's border crossings will not be opened before noon.

 

"A good meeting with hard-hitting questions," is how a senior defense official described Sunday's meeting.

 

Gilad briefed Shalit on recent developments regarding the ceasefire deal, including the approximated timetable for the efforts to secure the release of his son.


Noam Shalit with Amos Gilad at court (Photo: Dudi Vaaknin)

 

The Rafah crossing, he told Shalit, is and will remain closed. In any case, said Maj. Gen. Gilad, the kidnappers have no interest in smuggling his son out of Gaza and into Egypt. "As far as they're concerned, the Strip is a far better hiding place. If they had wanted to smuggle him out, they would have done so long ago through the tunnels," he said.

 

Gilad further reiterated that without the ceasefire agreement, it would have been very difficult to advance the negotiations for Shalit's release.

 

Tense day at court

The High Court's order followed the State's request that it reject the appeal filed by Gilad Shalit’s family against the ceasefire agreement with the armed Palestinian organizations in Gaza, which went into effect Thursday morning.

 

"This (truce) is political-security arrangement as a result of the cabinet’s decision regarding a political-security issue," the State said in its response to the petition. "The State is continually working to bring about Gilad's release and considers this a national task of the highest order.


High Court hears Shalit petition (Photo: AP)

 

According to the State Prosecutor's Office, within the framework of the ceasefire agreement the government is expected to launch "intense" negotiations for the captive soldier's release this week.

 

"These negotiations would not be launched if it weren't for the truce agreement," the State said. "The honorable court should not have the authority to order the State to breach existing diplomatic agreements with a foreign entity."

  

'I have to live with the guilt'

Noam Shalit told the court “I beg you to save my son; this is a one-time opportunity to save Gilad by forcing Hamas to sit at the negotiation table from a position of power. We fear Israel will lose its bargaining chips in the affair. Hamas has said that as far as it is concerned Gilad can remain in captivity for another 10 years.

 

“Unfortunately, the Ron Arad case occurred in the past and Israel postponed its actions and he disappeared. We fear that this situation will repeat itself. In our eyes, the court is the last resort in saving Gilad who has been held by Hamas in a dark, gloomy basement for the past two years," he said.

 

Ron Arad's wife Tami joined the petition filed by the Shalit family against the Gaza ceasefire.

 

In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the cabinet ministers, which was attached to the petition on Sunday, she wrote: "Twenty-two years after Ron disappeared into the Lebanese abyss I allow myself to take advantage of the right reserved to the eternally-missing, and join Aviva and Noam's cry.

 

"I look in the mirror every morning, and unlike you and your ministers, I have to live with the guilt of not doing enough. I have failed to influence your predecessors in time, when it was still possible to bring Ron home alive," she said.

 

Israel, wrote Arad, should pay whatever price necessary to ensure Gilad's return: "The mistakes made in Ron's case cannot be made again. Israel's deterrence capability cannot be established at the expense of its captive soldiers. Bigger experts than me have outlined better, more effective ways of fighting terror and they do not revolve around the answer to the kidnapped soldiers' issue.

 


פרסום ראשון: 06.22.08, 13:21
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