Gershon Baskin shares new revelations about his role in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.
Gilad Shalit and Gershon Baskin
The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange followed a 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners – mainly Palestinians and Arab-Israelis. Two hundred and eighty of these were sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various attacks against Israeli targets that resulted in the killing of 569 Israelis. The agreement came five years and four months after Palestinian militants captured Shalit in southern Israel along the Gaza Strip border.
In this documentary by Raviv Drucker, Gershon Baskin describes the secret back channel he established with Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Ghazi Hamad.
The agreement is the largest prisoner exchange agreement Israel has ever made and the highest price Israel has ever paid for a single soldier. Gilad Shalit was also the first captured Israeli soldier to be released alive in 26 years
