Paris displays Gilad Shalit banner as Israelis mark fifth anniversary of capture

Paris city council has placed a banner of Franco-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit on the façade of city hall this weekend to mark the beginning of his sixth year of captivity in the Gaza Strip. In Israel his parents and their supporters demanded that the government agree to exchange Palestinian prisoners for his release.

Reuters/Julien Muguet

There was no ceremony in Paris at the request of Shalit’s parents, who have been camping in front of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem for the past year. Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë says he has written to Palestinian

President Mahmoud Abbas asking him to intervene personally to win Shalit’s release.

They have opened a civil case for kidnapping and imprisonment in France and their lawyer, Patrick Klugman, said Saturday that an investigating magistrate is expected to be appointed during the week.

The family has not named Hamas, the Islamic movement which controls the Gaza Strip, as the kidnappers in their legal papers but Klugman says that the wording clearly indicates the group’s involvement.

Shalit was captured in 2006 during a cross-border raid by three Gaza-based groups, including Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades.

Hundreds of Israelis rallied as Kerem Shalom, where the capture took place, on Saturday to call for his release.

Organisers read out a letter from Shalit’s grandfather, Zvi, critising Netanyahu for not agreeing to Hamas’s proposal of a prisoner swap.

"It is clear to us that the prime minister, in his refusal to compromise, is gambling daily with the life of my grandson and endangering him," the letter said.

Hamas organised its own ceremony in Gaza City, where a man dressed as an Israeli soldier sat inside a fake prison cell under a banner reading, "The Red Cross asked for the release of Shalit, but we are asking the Red Cross if it has heard of the 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails."

The Al-Qassam Brigades issued a statement on their website saying Shalit "would not see the light of day" until the Palestinian prisoners were released.

The last proof that Shalit was alive was a video released in 2009, in which he pleaded with Netanyahu to make his liberation possible.