Marking 20 years since the abduction of tank soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israel Defense Forces Archive at the Defense Ministry published on Thursday the operations logs from the morning of June 25, 2006. The records, kept by the Southern Brigade command post in the Gaza Division, detail the first reports of the tank attack near Kerem Shalom, the growing realization that one soldier was missing, and the decision to activate the Hannibal procedure.
The logs say that at 5:13 a.m. the first reports came in of explosions and gunfire near the border fence. By 5:16, commanders ordered attack helicopters, and at 5:19 there were already reports of casualties. The article says the assault began when a militant cell crossed from Gaza through a tunnel and attacked an IDF armored force on alert. In the fighting, Sgt. Pavel Slutzker and Lt. Hanan Barak were killed, and Shalit was taken from the tank into Gaza.
At 6:40 a.m., the log first noted that a soldier was missing from the tank, and four minutes later the code word “Hannibal” appeared for the first time. By 7:12, troops had found a vest and helmet on the fence, and at 8:00 the abducted soldier was identified by name as Gilad Shalit. At 8:45, the record says Egyptian forces were positioning along the border to stop his transfer to Sinai. Later entries mention explosives at a tunnel entrance, blood and shrapnel on the recovered vest, and, at 5:38 p.m., a rumor that Shalit had been moved through a tunnel into Egypt, though the log says the credibility of that claim was unclear. Minutes later, the brigade commander said the tunnel shaft had been found in a house.
After the kidnapping, Israel launched a broad military and diplomatic effort to secure Shalit’s release. Three days later, the army entered Gaza in Operation Summer Rains, the first ground incursion there since disengagement the previous year. The operation, which included air strikes, targeted ground moves and attacks on Hamas infrastructure, lasted intermittently for about five months and ended in November 2006 with a ceasefire. Parallel efforts by Egypt and, because Shalit was also a French citizen, by France, failed to produce a deal for years, while Hamas withheld information about his condition and barred Red Cross visits.
Shalit’s family became a public symbol of the prisoners and missing persons campaign. The case ended only in October 2011 with a prisoner exchange after 1,941 days in captivity. Israel freed 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar, later Hamas leader in Gaza and the man described in the article as having pushed for the October 7 massacre.
