The interview was not a condition for Sergeant Shalit’s release, said Shahira Amin, the reporter who conducted it. Ms. Amin said she had asked the minister of information if it would be possible and he passed on the request to the military and intelligence officials handling the release, who authorized it at the last minute. Nevertheless, Ms. Amin said she had still made a point of asking Sergeant Shalit if she could talk to him briefly.

“If he had said no, I would not have forced him into it,” she said. She did say in Arabic during the exchange that she was skipping questions because he was so visibly tired.

Sergeant Shalit, wearing a blue checked shirt, was interviewed in English but answered in Hebrew through a translator. He struggled frequently, his face gaunt and his head lolling from side to side. The interview was not broadcast live, but was put on the air as soon as he was headed back to Israel, with virtually no editing, Ms. Amin said.

Ire in Israel focused mostly on the fact that she asked why he thought Egyptian mediation had succeeded where others had failed, and whether he was planning to work for the release of about 4,000 more Palestinians in Israeli jails. (The answers: Egypt had good relations with both sides. He would, as long as former prisoners did not fight Israel again.)