Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit heard the sound of battle around him during a massive 2006 military operation seeking to free him from his Gaza captors, his father said on Thursday.

"He was aware of the operation and everything that was going on," Noam Shalit told journalists outside the family home in a northern Israeli village, two days after Gilad was freed in exchange for a total of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.

"He was in immediate proximity to all the events and the sound of war," he said, adding that he did not ask his son how he felt at the time. "I imagine that it was no picnic, to be in a situation where F15 and F16 aircraft are flying over you and bombing everything that moves."

The military campaign, launched three days after he was captured by Palestinian militants in a raid into southern Israel in June 2006, lasted five months and left more than 400 Palestinians dead.

Thursday was the Jewish festival of Simhat Torah, the first Jewish holiday that the Shalit family have celebrated together in more than five years.

Gilad spent the day chatting to friends, riding his bicycle and playing table-tennis, his father said.