Israel frees other captives in Shalit video swap

Israel has set free the remaining nineteen Palestinian female captives in exchange for a one-minute video showing the fate of a captured IDF soldier, Gilad Shalit.

Eighteen of the women crossed into the West Bank aboard Red Cross vans and got a tremendous welcome as relatives and friends reacted ecstatically to their release. The last woman crossed in a Red Cross van into Gaza through the Erez checkpoint.

The 15-year-old Bara'ah Malki was released late Wednesday after a judge ordered her freed. The girl returned to her home in the Jalazone refugee camp near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The decision to free the twenty Palestinian prisoners came during a Security Cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning and in line with the proposal from the team negotiating the release of Gilad Shalit.

This is while Israel on Friday received a recently recorded video tape about Shalit. The tape clearly shows that the captive soldier enjoys a good health and shows he has no sign of wounds. The video was said to have been shot at a disclosed area in the Gaza Strip.

Shalit has been in Palestinian captivity since he was abducted by Gaza Strip fighters in a cross-border raid on June 25, 2006.

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has demanded Israel to release more than 1,000 Palestinians, including about 450 long-serving inmates, from its detention facilities in exchange for the freedom of the captured Israeli trooper.