Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit exchanged for Palestinian prisoners

Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured 5 years ago in 2006 when he was just 19 has now been released - being exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners - some of whom had been convicted of serious crimes, others who had not been charged at all.

He has spent a long time in captivity, and so have some of the people released.

One thing which I noted is that the 1000:1 ratio used here has been used previously too, when 1000 Palestinians (generally civillians) were killed for each Israeli (generally a soldier) in the assault in Gaza at the end of 2008/start of 2009.

I think that it is a good thing he was released - it needed to be done a long time ago.

I just hope that Palestinian lives are not considered to trade for so much less.