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"May you get to know Israel again, may you return home as quickly as possible, let there be only joy. Welcome. From Idan Ginossar, aged 7, from Haifa," said a note left on Friday afternoon in the box for letters to Gilad Shalit on the sidewalk beside the protest tent. On the back of the note, a drawing of a dinosaur, a sweet tribute from a caring child, who came to visit the parents of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit shortly after they left to travel home to Mitzpe Hila.
The protest encampment in Jerusalem, opposite the prime minister's residence, was empty of activists, and a few film crews and reporters still hovered around, wrapped up against the suddenly cool night air of Jerusalem on the eve of the Succot festival. The number 1935, the number of days of captivity, remained emblazoned on two signboards, one where the family would sit, and another on the other side of the road, addressed directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "Sara and Bibi, I have been held captive alone for 1935 days, and where are you?"
By Friday, all the protest activists and the Shalit family already knew that that sign could be removed. The prime minister was in residence, having closing the deal for Shalit's return in exchange for about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, perhaps the hardest task facing him, the last matter remaining open from the events that led to a war that he did not start.
On a white placard, fixed to Gilad's chair, is written, "Gilad! Just come. We are waiting for you. Too many years, we have gone crazy, we have no life any more. Just come!." On the back of the plastic chair was draped a T-shirt of the "Erim Balayla" ("Sleepless Nights") organization for prisoners and those missing in action, and every camera records the chair that has stood empty for many long months in the tent, waiting for Gilad. The chair was left behind, in the empty tent.
Earlier, Shalit's parents, Noam and Aviva, and his brother Yoel came to collect their things from the tent. They have to withstand several long days, suffering the public discussion of the names of the prisoners who will be released, to wait through petitions to the High Court of Justice against the deal, and to endure the nail-biting processes of the release itself, reportedly due to take place by Tuesday, before the final end of the story of Gilad's abduction.
Noam Shalit was due to talk to "Globes" on Wednesday for an article about him and the protest tent. We had arranged to meet at 12 pm in Jerusalem, when no-one knew that very soon there would be no tent.
But on Tuesday, Noam Shalit called to say that the meeting would not take place. In his polite way, he explained patiently that he was making no plans for the coming days, that he did not want to meet on Saturday at Rosh Hanikra either (where another protest event was planned), and when I asked him whether I could meet Aviva at Rosh Hanikra, he replied, "No. She will be with me the whole time, and I will not be at Rosh Hanikra." This was in a telephone conversation last Tuesday, October 11, in the afternoon, when of course he did not want to reveal anything of what he felt in those fateful moments in his life and in the life of his son.
Yesterday evening, as the Succot festival began, the entire family returned home to Mitzpe Hila, and the whole community waited for them. People prepared placards and got ready for the celebration of the soldier's return home.
"No-one understands. No-one grasps the reality of it. It seems unreal to see the pictures on television," Yoel Shalit told the media yesterday. "We waited an awfully long time, more than five years, and finally it happens," he said, and drove off with his parents to prepare the home for the event that really matters.
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