The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange (; ), also known as "Wafa al-Ahrar" ("Faithful to the free"), followed a 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners — almost all Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, although there were also a Ukrainian, a Jordanian and a Syrian. Two hundred and eighty of these had been sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various attacks against Israeli targets. Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari was quoted in the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Hayat as confirming that the prisoners released under the deal were collectively responsible for 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. The deal, brokered by Mossad official David Meidan through a secret back channel run by Gershon Baskin and Hamas Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Ghazi Hamad authorized by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on one side and Ahmed Jabari, head of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades on the other side. The list of prisoners to be released (based on previous work conducted by German and Egyptian mediators and coordinated by Bundesnachrichtendienst agent Gerhard Conrad), was signed in Egypt on 11 October 2011. Its first phase was executed on 18 October 2011, with Israel releasing 477 Palestinian prisoners and Hamas transferring Shalit to Cairo. In the second phase, which took place during December 2011, another 550 prisoners were released. The agreement is, to date, 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. Background 2006 Hamas cross-border raid On Sunday morning, 25 June 2006, at about 5:30 am (GMT+2) an armed squad of Palestinian special units from the Gaza Strip crossed the border into Israel via a tunnel they dug near the Kerem Shalom border crossing. After crossing the border via the tunnel, the militants, backed by mortar and anti-tank fire from within the Gaza Strip, split into three groups to attack a watch tower, an empty armored personnel carrier, and a Merkava Mark III tank. The militants managed to blow open the tank's rear doors with a rocket-propelled grenade fired from point-blank range and afterwards tossed hand grenades inside the tank. Two crew members were killed by the