Among the 1,027 prisoners that were released by Israel in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange were about 280 homicidal criminals who were serving life sentences for planning and perpetrating murders of Israeli civilians, and naturally found their way to leadership positions in the criminal organization Hamas. Here’s a short list of the top monsters:
Yahya Sinwar – served five life sentences for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and murdering five Arabs he suspected of collaborating with Israel. After his release in the Shalit exchange, he was elected the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip.
Husam Badran, the orchestrator of several suicide bombings with the highest number of fatalities including the 2001 bombing in the Dolphinarium discotheque in Tel Aviv which killed 21 civilians. Today he is the international spokesperson for Hamas using Twitter, Facebook, and news media to encourage young Hamas terrorists to murder Israeli civilians.
Tamimi Aref Ahmad Ahlam (16 life sentences) who assisted in the execution of the 2001 Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing.
Walid Abd al-Aziz Abd al-Hadi Anajas (36 life sentences) took part in the 2002 Café Moment bombing, the 2002 Hebrew University bombing, and the 2002 Rishon LeZion bombing.
Nasir Sami Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Nasser Yataima (29 life sentences) was convicted of planning the 2002 Netanya Park Hotel Passover massacre in which 30 civilians were killed and 140 wounded.
Maedh Waal Taleb Abu Sharakh (19 life sentences), Majdi Muhammad Ahmed Amr (19 life sentences), and Fadi Muhammad Ibrahim al-Jaaba (18 life sentences) who carried out the 2002 attack on bus No. 37 in Haifa.
Abd al-Hadi Rafa Ghanim (16 life sentences), the surviving perpetrator of the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem bus 405 suicide attack in which he seized the steering wheel of a crowded Egged commuter bus and pulled it into a ravine near Qiryat Ye’arim, killing 16 civilians.
Gilad Shalit, today 37, was captured by Hamas terrorists on 25 June 2006 in a cross-border raid through tunnels that crossed the Israeli border. Hamas held him captive for more than five years until his release on October 18, 2011, as part of the largest prisoner exchange deal in Israel’s history.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succumbed to years of relentless pressure by Shalit’s parents who organized thousands of mostly left-wing supporters who kept pushing for the release of 1,027 Arab security prisoners, many of them with Jewish blood on their hands, in exchange for a single Israeli soldier.
In many ways, the Shalit deal was at the root of today’s political and military crisis in Israel. It was the left who attacked Netanyahu for initially refusing the call to release a horde of murderers, noting the inevitable consequences of such a move. The right objected fiercely to the insane idea, but much the way things are today in Israel, the mainstream media kept beating the drums in favor of saving “our boy.”
The same people who supported uprooting 8,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip and removing the IDF controls there, also supported releasing the terrorists. They later appeared in the incessant anti-Netanyahu Balfour demonstrations that eventually toppled the same PM who under their relentless pressure opened the security prisons’ gates. And this year they morphed into the thousands of anti-Netanyahu protesters blocking highways and harassing Jews who stand in prayer in public spaces.
Hamas, for its part, learned the lesson that Israel would eventually release every murderer in its prisons if only enough Israelis were abducted. And so, on October 7, Hamas kidnapped an unprecedented number of Israelis, 200 at last official count, and the same leftist voices are now calling to suspend the war effort and deal first with releasing the hostages.
Starting with the expulsion of Gush Katif, the Israeli left has acted as a duped agent of Hamas, and remains unashamed and unapologetic about the enormous harm it has inflicted on Israel. And they have the temerity to demand that Netanyahu resign for his failure to stop the October 7 attack. He may have to resign, but most of all for his delinquent collaboration with the left which ultimately brought on his demise.
