Tomorrow, Thursday, October 18, marks one year since the Shalit deal when Israel received back the kidnapped hostage soldier, Gilad Shalit, and freed more than a thousand convicted terrorists, many of them killers of Israeli civilians.
We campaigned to try to have the remorseless killer of our child removed from the walk-free list and failed comprehensively. Each of us, separately, will have articles published in the media tomorrow reflecting our thoughts a year later.
Yediot Aharonot carried a report today that is translated to English and excerpted below. The report is by the paper’s Alex Fishman, and it reveals some aspects of the transaction that, as far as we can tell, have gotten little to no coverage in other parts of the Israeli media.
Terrorists freed in Shalit deal resume terror activity, data shows
Dozens of terrorists released as part of prisoner swap arrested by Shin Bet over past year, according to data compiled by defense establishment
Alex Fishman | Ynet October 17, 2012Raising fears about looming terrorist attacks, data compiled by the defense establishment indicate that dozens of the Palestinian prisoners who were released a year ago as part of the deal that freed IDF soldier Gilad Shalit have resumed terrorist activity.
The deal’s first round saw the release of 477 security prisoners, 209 of whom were deported to the Gaza Strip.
According to the data, which was released by Yedioth Ahronoth on Wednesday, many of the Gaza deportees have joined Hamas‘ leadership, while others are actively developing weapons and firing rockets on Israel.
Furthermore, some are recruiting new terror cells in the West Bank, including one Hebron cell that planted a bomb in Jerusalem and planned to kidnap an IDF soldier.
Prior to the Shalit deal, some officials postulated that major terror attacks will resume once the terrorists are released.
So far, the glum prediction largely did not materialize, due to the constant efforts by the defense establishment, mainly the Shin Bet.
The prisoners who were deported to the West Bank have not abstained from hostile activity, either; over the past year Israel has arrested 40 Palestinians in the territories on suspicion of rioting, throwing Molotov cocktails, transferring funds for terrorist acts and other violations.
Twenty-four of them – including two women – are still under arrest.
One has been tried and incarcerated. A senior defense official said that “Their will to execute acts of terror is getting stronger, but the coordination with the Palestinian authorities is effective and Israel knows how to sophistically [sic] track the released terrorists.”
“Several terror attacks have been successfully prevented thanks to the hard fieldwork,” he said.
However, the official noted that the Palestinian security services have experienced setbacks recently as a result of the financial crisis.
The Palestinian security employees did not receive last month’s salaries, and two months ago many of them were caught or suspected of smuggling, transfering funds and taking part in illegal trade. [More]
We think the setbacks are many, and not limited to the factors recited in the Ynet article. More about this later.
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