Yousef Alhelou reports: Three ex-Shin Bet officers declare that it would be impossible to recover captured Israeli soldier, Shalit, alive
Seven months after the capture of the Israeli soldier, corporal Gilad Shalit, Israeli confidence in their security services' ability to release him by force have shattered. The Gaza Strip is very small but densely populated and so the Israeli intelligence' advanced technologies are not expected to achieve the mission of discovering and releasing Shalit.
The Israeli satellite channel 10, has published a 15 minute report and hosted 3 former leaders of Shin Bet, the Israeli interior intelligence service, to discuss the chance that the Israeli authorities will free Shalit by force. The guests were Yaquv Perry, Ami Ayalon and Karmi Gilon. They all came to the same conclusion; Shalit can not be released by force.
Karmi Gilon, who led the failed attempt in the 1990s to release the Israeli soldier Nachshon Vaksman, who was taken hostage by a Hamas' cell near Ramallah in the central occupied Palestinian West Bank, said that "it is possible to locate the place of the hostage [Shalit], but it seems impossible to bring him back safely. In the case of Vaksman, the then Israeli Prime Minister, Yitshaq Rabin, and his chief of staff, Ehud Barak, decided to break into the residential department where he was detained, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, which resulted in the bloody killing of the captors after they had killed the hostage. This result really irritated the Israeli people."
Yaquv Perry affirmed that the Israeli intelligence can locate the place where Shalit is being detained, however no Israeli official can give orders to invade that place out of fear that he will meet the same end as Vaksman.
Ami Ayalon commented that the captors of Shalit keep changing the location of his detention and the means of communication, they even change the guards which complicates any intended mission to follow their traces.
The three former Shin Bet leaders recommended that Israel expedite the prisoners exchange with Hamas, so as to not miss the opportunity for an exchange, as they did with the Israeli pilot Ron Arad who was captured in Lebanon by the Amal Shi'ite organization in 1986 and is missing to this day.
Yousef Alhelou
Yousef Alhelou is a freelance Palestinian journalist based in Gaza. He can be contacted on ydamadan@hotmail.com
Seven months after the capture of the Israeli soldier, corporal Gilad Shalit, Israeli confidence in their security services' ability to release him by force have shattered. The Gaza Strip is very small but densely populated and so the Israeli intelligence' advanced technologies are not expected to achieve the mission of discovering and releasing Shalit.
The Israeli satellite channel 10, has published a 15 minute report and hosted 3 former leaders of Shin Bet, the Israeli interior intelligence service, to discuss the chance that the Israeli authorities will free Shalit by force. The guests were Yaquv Perry, Ami Ayalon and Karmi Gilon. They all came to the same conclusion; Shalit can not be released by force.
Karmi Gilon, who led the failed attempt in the 1990s to release the Israeli soldier Nachshon Vaksman, who was taken hostage by a Hamas' cell near Ramallah in the central occupied Palestinian West Bank, said that "it is possible to locate the place of the hostage [Shalit], but it seems impossible to bring him back safely. In the case of Vaksman, the then Israeli Prime Minister, Yitshaq Rabin, and his chief of staff, Ehud Barak, decided to break into the residential department where he was detained, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, which resulted in the bloody killing of the captors after they had killed the hostage. This result really irritated the Israeli people."
Yaquv Perry affirmed that the Israeli intelligence can locate the place where Shalit is being detained, however no Israeli official can give orders to invade that place out of fear that he will meet the same end as Vaksman.
Ami Ayalon commented that the captors of Shalit keep changing the location of his detention and the means of communication, they even change the guards which complicates any intended mission to follow their traces.
The three former Shin Bet leaders recommended that Israel expedite the prisoners exchange with Hamas, so as to not miss the opportunity for an exchange, as they did with the Israeli pilot Ron Arad who was captured in Lebanon by the Amal Shi'ite organization in 1986 and is missing to this day.
Yousef Alhelou
Yousef Alhelou is a freelance Palestinian journalist based in Gaza. He can be contacted on ydamadan@hotmail.com