Gilad Shalit is 23 today - show your solidarity with his family

August 28th is Gilad Shalit’s 23rd birthday. He will spend it – as he has the past 3 years – in Hamas captivity. The international community must do all it can to free him now.

He is being held hostage by the terrorist organization Hamas since his capture in the summer of 2006. The continued captivity of this young man with little word as to his fate is unacceptable and a clear violation of international protocol.

Cpt. Gilad Shalit, 22, was kidnapped on June 25, 2006 during a cross-border attack by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on a military installation near Kibbutz Kerem Shalom in southern Israel. Two soldiers were killed and three wounded during the raid. Shalit is still being held by Hamas at an undisclosed location in the Gaza Strip.

On July 16, 2008, the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah from Israeli soil on July 12, 2006, were returned to Israel as part of a prisoner exchange. Their kidnapping sparked the 2006 Lebanon War. Over the two years the soldiers were held captive, Hezbollah never provided information as to the soldiers condition or fate. The return of their bodies was the first acknowledgement by Hezbollah that the soldiers were dead.

The international community must do all it can to free Gilad Shalit now

Hezbollah, Iran, and other parties must also be called on to release all information concerning the other missing Israeli soldiers, including Ron Arad, who was captured on October 16, 1986, and Zachary Baumel, Tzvi Feldman and Yehuda Katz who were captured on June 11, 1982.

What you can do:

Show your solidarity ith the soldiers and their families by visiting the family’s  Web site below

http://www.habanim.org/en/index_en.html

Raise awareness of the ongoing situation Gilad Shalit in your community. Share this fact sheet with your family, friends and colleagues. Write letters to the editor.