Raed al-Atar was the commander of the Rafah Brigade of the Hamas Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and member of the Hamas high military council. According to the Congressional Research Service analyst Ji
The 2006 Gaza cross-border raid, known by Palestinian militants as Operation Dispersive Illusion was an armed incursion carried out by seven or eight Gazan Palestinian militants on 25 June 2006 who at
Raed al Atar
…Yasser Arafat met with civic leaders in Rafah and asked them to restore calm, promising to review the death sentence. In 2006, al Atar directed the cross-border raid in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured. He was also present during Shalit's release from captivity during the 2011 prisoner exchange. During…
Gilad Shalit on Hamas poster, Nablus 7 May 2007
After more than five years in Hamas captivity, IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was released and returned to Israel, while nearly a thousand Palestinian and Arab-Israeli prisoners are being released in exchange, 18 October 2011.