In a highly militarized country like Israel, where nearly every native-born Israeli does at minimum his or her mandatory military service and many continue to serve as reservists for decades after, the kidnapping of a soldier hits close to home for nearly everyone. Five years after Shalit’s capture, banners proclaiming “Gilad still lives” could be found hanging across the country.
Seeing Shalit released, alive and well, would reassure Israelis about the fate of their own loved ones who serve.
"I have a son who's in the midst of his national service. He's 20, and that of course augments everything that I'm feeling," Israeli Shira Ezra told the BBC in June 2011. "Just being an Israeli, I'm thinking how absurd it is that someone is alive there and we're not getting him out."
However, for some – particularly those who have had a family member targeted in a terrorist attack – the release of so many Palestinian prisoners isn’t worth the release of one soldier, as the Monitor reported in 2009, as a deal on Shalit seemed imminent.
Yossi Zur, whose son died when a Haifa bus he was riding was blown up in 2003, explained why.
"I believe that releasing so many terrorists is going to do a lot of harm, most probably by creating a new wave of terrorism," he adds, "and we know many of these terrorists go back to the same kind of activity after they are released."
