The leader of the Colombian Jewish community, Marcos Peckel, has praised his country's authorities for the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt and fourteen other hostages from the hands of the guerrilla group FARC. Betancourt, hijacked by FARC commandos in 2002, and her fellow hostages, including three US citizens, were liberated from captivity by Colombian troops. Peckel, the president of the Centro Israelita de Bogotá, called the liberation "an important victory for Colombia" and said that the Jewish community had written a letter of congratulations to Colombia’s president Álvaro Uribe and other members of the government.
At a press conference shortly after her liberation, Betancourt - a former presidential candidate - praised the Colombian armed forces for carrying out a "perfect operation", without firing a single shot, something that normally only Israel's military was deemed capable of doing.
Speaking at the Elysée Palace in Paris together with members of Betancourt's family, France's president Nicolas Sarkozy praised the Colombian rescue operation and also vowed that Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas operatives and held hostage in the Gaza Strip, would not be forgotten. "I would like to direct my last words to Gilad Shalit and his parents. We have not forgotten. France is always ready to be recruited for a person held unjustly," Sarkozy said. Both Betancourt and Shalit hold French citizenship.
