Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Gilad Shalit Will Lead Aliyah Flight From U.S.

Gilad Shalit will accompany a flight of new immigrants, including 106 children, leaving New York for Israel on Monday.

The former captive soldier will be onboard the first chartered El Al aliyah flight of the summer, which will leave John F. Kennedy Airport with 231 new immigrants, including 41 families.

A live feed of the immigrants landing in Israel, at 7 A.M. Tuesday, and the welcoming ceremony will be available at the Nefesh B’Nefesh website.

Some 990 children are scheduled to make aliyah this year, according to Nefesh B’Nefesh, a 20 percent increase over last year.

Last month, Hamas posted a video showing Shalit preparing to be released.

The 38-second video posted to the Internet showed Shalit buttoning a new shirt, tying his shoes and getting out of his chair flanked by Hamas operatives.

The video also shows photos of other Israelis kidnapped and killed by Hamas and ends with the words, in Arabic, “We started to achieve the goal, and we will reach the end.”

The video was prepared by the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.

Shalit was the only member of a three-man crew who survived a cross-border attack on June 25, 2006 by armed Palestinians who captured him and hid him in Gaza. He was released in a 2011 deal with Hamas in exchange for 1,027 prisoners, many of them convicted terrorists responsible for killing Israelis.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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.