Gilad Shalit, former Hamas abductee, married
Gilad Shalit, a former IDF soldier who was in Hamas captivity for five years, married Nitzan Shabbat on Wednesday night in Sharonit, central Israel, after being engaged for over a year.
Gilad and Notzan
Shalit was abducted by Hamas terrorists in 2006 in a cross-border raid through tunnels on Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip was detained for the next five years.
He was released in October 2011 during a prisoner exchange deal that released over 1,000 convicted Palestinian terrorists, one of the biggest prisoner swaps in Israeli history.
Shalit and Shabbat had been in a relationship for many years prior to their engagement and marriage. They currently live in central Israel where Shalit works at a bank in the securities department, and Shabbat is a social worker and artist.
Shalit and Shabbat were married under a canopy in the Sharonit event garden, surrounded by family members, close friends and activists involved in the campaign for Shalit’s release from Hamas captivity.
Prior to the ceremony, the couple participated in a traditional henna ceremony, and the photographs from the event went viral on the internet.
Shai Gross, an abductee saved by Israeli commandos during Operation Entebbe in Uganda in 1976, was one of the wedding attendees. He said he first met Gilad a week after he was released after working for four years to free him from Hamas.
Gross said he is more than a brother to him and it was incredible to see him at the ceremony after everything he had been through.
“A special bond was formed between us,” Gross said. “Even I have such a special connection with him and seeing him and Nitzan, it’s an amazing closing of a circle. I wish them all the best in the world.”
