An exhibition featuring illustrations to Gilad Shalit’s short story “When the Shark and the Fish first meet,” will be inaugurated next Monday at the European Parliament in Brussels in the presence of the parliament’s president Jerzy Buzek and Reuven Rivlin, president of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
Gilad Shalit was 19-year-old when he was abducted in June 2006 by Palestinian armed groups, including the armed wing of Hamas, the Islamist movement which rules Gaza, during an infiltration and attack near kibbutz Kerem Shalom, on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza. An Israeli army officier and a soldier were killed in the attacks.
Since then he has been held captive by Hamas at a secret location in the Gaza Strip without any contact with his family or visits by the Red Cross.
The last sign of life was in October 2009 in a video recording released by his captors
Indirect negotiations brokered by Egypt and Germany over a prisoner exchange, which would see the release of hundreds of Palestinians detainees in exchange for Shalit, have led nowhere.
A German negotiator who has been ferrying messages between Hamas and Israel in an attempt to work out a deal for the release of Gilad Shalit, arrived in Egypt on Monday, an Egyptian report said.
At age of 11, when he was a pupil in the 5th grade at the Maale Hagalil elementary school, Gilad Shalit wrote a short story about a fish and a shark who meet and, though natural enemies, they decide to become friends and live in peace.
Gilad's story was illustrated by Israeli artists and children.