page_title: Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange
section_title: Implementation of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange
hierarchical_section_title: Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange / Implementation of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange
caption_attribution_description: October 18, 2011 After landing in an IDF base, Gilad Shalit was reunited with his father, Noam.
context_page_description: The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange also known as Wafa al-Ahrar followed a 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners – mainly Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, although there was also a Ukrainian, a Jordanian and a Syrian. Two-hundred and eighty of these had been sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various attacks against Israeli targets. Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari was quoted in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Hayat as confirming that the prisoners released under the deal were collectively responsible for the killing of 569 Israelis. The agreement came five years and four months after Palestinian militants captured Shalit in southern Israel along the Gaza Strip border.
  The deal, brokered by Mossad official David Meidan through a secret back channel run by Dr. Gershon Baskin and Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Ghazi Hamad authorized by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on one side and Ahmed Jabari, head of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades on the other side.
context_section_description: The agreement is implemented in two stages:
  In the first stage, Gilad Shalit was transferred from the Gaza Strip to Egypt and from there to Israel; concurrently, Israel released 477 prisoners.
  In the second stage, which took place two months later, another 550 prisoners were released.
caption: Shalit meets his father for the first time in five years, 18 October 2011.
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