Former Israel PM questions Shalit’s abduction

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has questioned the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, commenting that he does not know whether it was an abduction or simply a case of Shalit handing himself over.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Olmert criticised Shalit’s actions during a television interview. Speaking on the Israeli Channel 10, he raised doubts about the manner in which  Shalit was taken prisoner by Hamas in 2006.

“The kidnappers almost left and then someone popped up from the tank,” Olmert said. “If I know whether to call it an abduction or handing himself over? … Something there was strange that has not been figured out yet.”

The show is about the decisions made behind the scenes concerning the deal in which Shalit was released in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Later in the programme, former general and national security advisor Giora Eiland, who headed the committee that examined the abduction, criticised Shalit’s actions too: “I agree with the description that as a combat soldier he was expected to do more than he did.”

Shalit was captured in June 2006 and released in October 2011. In 2012, a commission headed by former Supreme Court President Meir Shamgar recommended that only a few security prisoners be released in such deals in the future, and not dozens or even thousands, in return for a single Israeli captive, in order to avoid such agreements.