a special Cabinet meeting to approve the Shalit deal. The deal was brokered by German and Egyptian mediators and signed in Cairo. It stipulated the release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 Israeli-held security prisoners, 280 of these served life sentences for planning and perpetrating various terror attacks against Israeli targets. The military Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari was quoted in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Hayat as confirming that the prisoners released as part of the deal were collectively responsible for 569 deaths of Israeli civilians. Gerald Steinberg, political science professor at Bar-Ilan University and president of NGO Monitor, said that the goal of Israel allowing the Egyptians to take an active part was "to help stabilize [Cairo], so they play a constructive role in the region. It's to show to other countries" as well, that Egypt is a "counterweight" to Turkey, with Israel showing preference to Egypt. Shortly after Benjamin Netanyahu announced that an agreement had been reached, the Israeli Cabinet convened in an emergency session to vote on the deal. Twenty-six ministers voted in favor of the deal while three voted against it—Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya'alon, and Minister of National Infrastructure Uzi Landau. Ya'alon (Likud) argued that the prisoners would "go back to terrorism" and that they would destabilize the security situation in the West Bank. Landau (Yisrael Beiteinu) warned that the deal would be "a huge victory for terror" and that it would encourage more abductions of Israelis. On 15 October the Israeli Justice Ministry published the list of the 477 prisoners that Israel intends to release as part of the first phase of the agreement. Controversy among the Israeli public During the time period in which Shalit was in captivity the Shalit issue became a highly debated and controversial matter within the Israeli public. Following the calls from terror victims widows in 2009 to release the killers of their loved ones in exchange for Shalit, Ze'ev Rapp, the father of the late Helena Rapp, publicly expressed his strong objection:"Those who support this move don't understand the grief they're causing us. The memory of our loved ones cries out from beneath the earth for revenge. Blood is pouring from our heart and soul; stop bringing up these "bleeding hearts" ideas. [...] Stop drinking our blood!" The Israeli press also extensively debated this issue. Israeli analyst Dan Schueftan has called the possible