Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Gilad Shalit Marks First Birthday Since Release

Gilad Shalit marked his first birthday since being freed from Hamas captivity.

Shalit turned 26 on Tuesday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Shalit to wish him a happy birthday.

“This is a particularly happy birthday,” Netanyahu reportedly told Shalit. “It is a birthday of freedom. The entire Israeli nation wishes you mazal tov.”

The Shalit family plans a private birthday celebration over the weekend, Shalit’s grandfather Zvi Shalit told Army Radio.

Shalit was released last October by Hamas after more than five years of captivity in the Gaza Strip.

Shalit earlier this summer was honored by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The ex-captive, who is now a sportswriter for the daily Yediot Achronot newspaper in Israel, was in the United States this month covering the NBA championship series and was in New York for a brief trip on his way to the Euro 12 soccer championships being held in Poland and Ukraine.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.