 Alemanno said that the Shalit affair does not concern the State of Israel alone, but the whole of humanity.On 1 July 2009, Alemanno conferred the honor to Shalit at a ceremony and presented a parchment declaration to Shalit's father, Noam.Alemanno said that making Shalit an honorary citizen was "a gesture of high symbolic value, with which Rome chooses to salute the values of life, of solidarity and of respect for the human rights."