Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu named a former senior Mossad intelligence agency operative today to coordinate efforts to retrieve a soldier captured in a cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip.
A government statement said Haggai Hadas (56) would work with security personnel and a ministerial committee in seeking the return of Gilad Shalit, who militants from the coastal territory seized when they tunnelled into Israel in 2006.
Mr Hadas retired from the Mossad three years ago and then launched a web-based technological startup company, the Israeli statement said. He replaces Ofer Dekel, who spearheaded a prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon a year ago, in which Israel recovered the bodies of two Israeli soldiers whose 2006 capture had led to a month-long war.
Mr Dekel, who resigned last month after Netanyahu took office, also headed a failed bid to negotiate a prisoner swap for Shalit through Egyptian mediation with Hamas Islamist rulers of Gaza. Hamas has demanded Israel free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit.
Reuters