OCCUPIED JERUSALEMIsrael on Friday received a video recording of a soldier held by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas for the past three years, Israeli officials said.
The handover was carried out as Israel released 19 Palestinian women prisoners in its part of the exchange, Reuters Television reported from the West Bank border as Red Cross jeeps carried the women across to freedom.
The video
The video showing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit alive was aired on Israeli television on Friday.
Looking gaunt, the clean-shaven 23-year-old read from a piece of paper, at times smiling or repressing a grin, as he sat on a chair against a white wall.
"I want to send my regards to my family and tell them that I love them and miss them and yearn for the day I will see them again," said Shalit, with his hair cut short and holding a copy of a Gaza newspaper dated September 14, 2009.
"I hope that the government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu will not waste now an opportunity to reach a deal," he said, referring to the Israeli prime minister.
"I feel well and the mujahedeen of the (Ezzedine) al-Qassam Brigades are treating me very well," he said, referring to the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which rules Gaza.
"I have been waiting a long time for the day I am released."
At the end of the two-minute, 40-second recording, Shalit got up and walked toward the camera to illustrate that he was in good health.
A positive move
The swap is the most positive move in three years of efforts to free Shalit, captured in June 2006 in a cross-border raid by Palestinian militants
Brokered by German and Egyptian mediators, it could be a step towards a broader deal for his liberation, in return for the release of hundreds of Hamas prisoners.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has not visited Shalit and only a few letters and an audio cassette from him have reached his family, which has waged a vocal campaign to get him freed
Officials had said that the German mediator has already viewed the recording and believes it showed Shalit in recent weeks. Shalit's family was expected to view the videotape before its release to the public.
"Israel will receive updated and clear proof on the health and condition of Gilad Shalit. This proof of life will be handed to Israel by the mediators in the form of a videotape that has recently been filmed," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office had said when announcing the deal on Wednesday.
10,000 Palestinian prisoners
Israel holds more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas is negotiating for the release of hundreds of its members in exchange for Shalit, including militants behind deadly attacks who Israel has said in the past it would not free.
Netanyahu's office stressed that the latest development did not herald an imminent release of Shalit, but was meant as a confidence-building measure ahead of "decisive stages in the negotiations," and warned that the talks were still expected to be "long and arduous."
All but one of the Palestinian women due to be released are from the West Bank and none has been directly implicated in killing Israelis.
The women include members of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
A 15-year-old Palestinian girl who was on the initial list of prisoners to be released in the swap was freed on Wednesday after a parole board shortened her sentence in a development unconnected with the prisoner swap.
The teenager was serving 11 months for attempted murder and an attack on a police officer.
About 11,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, 60 of them women, including those to be released on Friday, and 320 are under 18 years old, according to the prisons service.
