Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and hundreds of Palestinians have crossed Israel's borders in opposite directions as a thousand-for-one prisoner exchange brought joy to families but did little to ease decades of conflict.
Sergeant Shalit, 25, returned home to a national outpouring of emotion in Israel after five years in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
The first few hundred of over a thousand Palestinians being freed in stages from Israeli jails were greeted with kisses and flags in Gaza and the West Bank.
"I missed my family very much," a gaunt Shalit, his breathing laboured at times, said in an interview with Egyptian television, conducted before he was transferred to Israel. "I hope this deal will promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians."
But there was no sign from Israel or Hamas, the Islamist group dedicated to its destruction, that the deal brokered by Egypt could be a starting point for dialogue.
"The people want a new Gilad, the people want a new Gilad," tens of thousands of people chanted at a rally in Gaza for freed prisoners, urging that their fighters capture more soldiers to help free some of the 5000 Palestinians still held by Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, welcoming Shalit home, warned the former prisoners they would be "taking their life into their own hands" if they "returned to terror".
"It is a difficult day," Netanyahu said, describing the price Israel paid for Shalit's release as high.
Shalit was taken across the frontier from the Gaza Strip into Egypt's Sinai peninsula and driven to Israel's Kerem Shalom - Vineyard of Peace - border crossing, from where a helicopter flew him to an Israeli air base for a reunion with his parents.
Simultaneously Israel freed 477 Palestinian prisoners, most of them to the Gaza Strip. Many of those released had been serving life terms for attacks in which Israelis were killed.
A military statement said Shalit was in good health, but witnesses said he felt nauseous and weak on his arrival in Israel and needed oxygen.
"I brought your boy home," Netanyahu said he told Shalit's parents, as he waited with them at the air base for the soldier's helicopter to land.
Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package. 
