The Hamas militant group released an Israeli soldier Tuesday, October 18, more than five years after his capture, turning him over to Egyptian mediators in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The deal, the most lopsided prisoner swap in Israeli history, caps a five-and-a-half-year saga that has seen multiple Israeli military offensives in Gaza, an Israeli blockade on the territory and numerous rounds of failed negotiations.
The swap got under way early Tuesday as Hamas whisked Sgt. Gilad Schalit across Gaza's border with Egypt, while Israel simultaneously began freeing the Palestinian prisoners. At midmorning, Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, said his group was no longer holding the soldier.
Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV reported that a high-level Hamas delegation arrived on the Egyptian side to hand over Schalit and to greet the returning prisoners.
In an elaborate operation, Schalit was then to be taken across Egypt's border into Israel, and then flown to an air base in central Israel to be reunited with his family, The Associated Press reported.
