Hezi Shai

Hezi Shai (; born 1954) is a former tank commander in the Israel Defense Forces. During the 1982 Lebanon War, he was one of five Israeli soldiers declared missing in action after their tanks were hit during the Battle of Sultan Yacoub.

Shai and his tank crew became separated and he walked into a camp of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, a pro-Syria Palestinian militant organization headed by Ahmed Jibril. He was taken captive and smuggled into Syria. His whereabouts and even the fact that he was alive were unknown to the Israeli defense establishment for the next two and a half years. Later a nephew of Jibril captured by the Israelis hinted to Shai's existence. Following extensive negotiations mediated by Austrian diplomats, Shai and two other captured Israeli soldiers were released in May 1985 in exchange for 1,150 Palestinian and Lebanese security prisoners held by Israel. The Jibril Agreement, involving as it did so many Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were serving life sentences for mass murder, was not popular in Israel, but Defense Minister Yitzchak Rabin convinced the Israeli Cabinet to approve the deal.

Biography Hezi Shai was born in Nes Ziona, Israel, to Shlomo and Doris Shai, both immigrants from Baghdad. He studied at a national-religious school in Pardes Katz. He led a course for tank commanders. The eleven-tank convoy was surrounded by Syrian and Palestinian forces and engaged in heavy fighting throughout the night of 10–11 June. When ordered to retreat to Israeli lines, Shai's tank, which was the last in the convoy, was hit by an enemy shell and its turret was entangled in a tree. The crew, consisting of Shai, Zechariah Baumel, Zvi Feldman, and Arye Lieberman, abandoned the tank and hid in an orchard. They came under fire again and were separated. Shai wandered into a camp occupied by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC), a pro-Syria Palestinian militant organization headed by Ahmed Jibril, and was taken prisoner.

Shai recounted in an interview: "On the way down I entered a Jibril camp. Someone approached and asked, 'Who are you?' I replied in Arabic that I was with the Iraqi forces. There were artillery forces below and I said, 'I am with the cannons', I spoke the word 'cannons' in Hebrew with an Arab accent. I simply forgot the Arabic word. The guy told me to go, but someone else heard me and told me to wait. He came out and saw me and said, 'You are an Israeli.' The jig was up".

Two years into his ordeal, Shai was transferred to a larger cell. He was briefly given over to interrogation by the Syrians, who "beat him with broomsticks and subjected him to electric shocks" before returning him to the Jibril group. While Jibril did not mention that his group was holding Shai, Shmuel Tamir, the lead negotiator, began to suspect Shai was alive when Jibril's nephew

The brokered deal, known as the Jibril Agreement, called for PFLP-GC to release the three Israeli soldiers in exchange for 1,150 Palestinian and Lebanese security prisoners being held by Israel. Defense Minister Yitzchak Rabin claimed that an Entebbe-style rescue operation had not been possible, so he "had no choice" and had negotiated "the best terms we could", and convinced the Israeli Cabinet to approve it. Many of the released prisoners went on to participate in the First Intifada and committed further attacks against Israeli civilians.