Around 600 people, including several Belgian political representatives and many Jewish youths, gathered in Brussels on Sunday to express support for Gilad Shalit and his family.
A portrait of the young man, held captive by Hamas in Gaza since June 25, 2006, was displayed along the façade of the Cercle Ben Gourion, a Jewish community centre.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev this week called for Gilad Shalit to be freed "as soon as possible". He made the call while meeting a Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Damascus, Syria, his spokeswoman said.
Since being detained by the Palestinian Islamist group, Gilad Shalit, who has dual Israeli and French citizenship, was denied elementary rights of a prisoner, such as in particular the visit of a doctor or of the International Red Cross, recalled the Belgian association of support for Gilad Shalit, which initiated the rally.
"We will send a film of the gathering to Gilad’s family to show that the the whole Jewish community of Belgium stands behind their cause,” explained Maurice Blibaum, president of the association.
He called on French president Nicolas Sarkozy to make even more efforts to use his influence in order to obtain the release of the young man, noting with satisfaction that Frenchwoman Clotide Reiss was freed on Sunday after several months of forced captivity in Iran.
Blibaum said his association hopes to display also a portrait of Gilad Shalit on the walls of the European Parliament building in Brussels.
In March, a vast majority of the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted a resolution calling for the immediate release of Gilad Shalit and asking that the most elementary rules regarding the human rights be respected.
Shalit, who is now 23, was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists in a cross-border raid from Gaza on a southern military base. So far, Egyptian and German mediators have failed to finalize a prisoners swap between Hamas and Israel.