Shalit activists thwart Palestinians' prison visit

Protesters prevent passage of bus transporting relatives on way to visit Palestinian prisoners; activists object fact state allows Palestinian prisoners to receive visitors, while Shalit has not received one visitor since abduction

Ahiya Raved|Published: 10.11.11 , 10:31

Dozens of activists demanding the release of Gilad Shalit blocked a bus transporting families on their way to visit Palestinian prisoners at Shata Prison. Police forces that arrived at the scene to disperse the protest decided to send the bus back to the Palestinian territories, cancelling the prison visit.

The activists object to the fact that the state allows Palestinian prisoners detained within its territories to receive visitors, while Shalit – an IDF soldier held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip – has not received one visitor in the five years since he was abducted.

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The activists attempted to block the bus earlier in its journey, but were stopped by the police. They followed it to the prison, where they succeeded in the mission.

Protesters block bus at Shata Prison on Tuesday

Among the protesters was Miki Goldwasser, whose son Ehud Goldwasser was kidnapped by Hezbollah in 2006. The IDF soldier's body was returned to Israel as part of a prisoner swap deal in 2008.

"It's absurd that they give our enemies such good (confinement) terms," Miki Goldwasser said during the protest. She negated the premise that providing the Palestinian prisoners with education will stop them from returning to terrorism, saying that "We see today that students carry out the harshest acts of terror and slaughter babies."

"Terror groups are headed by engineers," she added. "These prisoners continue to manage the terror organizations using the phones they get in their prison cells."

Meanwhile, efforts to raise international awareness for Shalit's plight continued with the opening of an art exhibit focused on the issue at European Parliament in Brussels. The exhibition, titled "When the Shark and the Fish First Met," features drawings based on a children's book Shalit wrote when he was 11.

Shalit's story focuses on a shark and a fish that prefer to live in harmony rather than be enemies. The opening of the show on Monday was attended by Israeli and European politicians, including EU Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, who acknowledged that Shalit “is a citizen of the European Union" and added that his concern for the soldier was like the concern he has for his own children.