A meticulously crafted ruse: the details of a nerve-racking operation that brought back an Israeli soldier from Gaza
A precise and gripping operation, employing an unexpected trick and intelligence secrets to recover an Israeli soldier from the Gaza Strip after more than ten years of detention.
On a winter night in January 2025, the Israeli army succeeded in recovering the body of Sergeant Shaul Oron, who was killed in the Gaza Strip in 2014, following a meticulous intelligence operation that lasted for months, during which covert and deceptive methods were used to ensure the mission’s success before the ceasefire.
This was reported by the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, which described the operation as “nerve-racking” and said that reality had surpassed fiction.
In 2014, the armored personnel carrier carrying Oron was heading toward the Shuja’iyya neighborhood east of Gaza City, but it became stuck in the area of Daraj al-Tuffah, where it came under fire from Hamas.
Since then, Hamas had given him the code name “the stairway soldier,” according to the newspaper.
The first indications of the body’s location
The first intelligence signals pointing to the possible location of Oron’s body appeared on the second day of the Hebrew New Year in 2024.
During a raid by the Israeli army, forces seized a computer containing correspondence between a Hamas member and a senior military commander of the movement in Gaza, Izz al-Din al-Haddad.
In these exchanges, the operative warned Haddad that among the detainees transferred from Al-Shifa Hospital was a person who knew where Oron’s body was being held.
After reviewing the files of detainees from Al-Shifa Hospital, Israeli intelligence focused on a single suspect.
He initially denied any connection to the case, but under intensive interrogation he admitted having met two Palestinians in Hamad City in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip.
According to his account, the two said that Israel had recently arrested a Palestinian who had transferred the body to another Palestinian from Gaza named Ibrahim al-Halou, who was holding it.
Intelligence investigations revealed that al-Halou had been a Hamas faction commander in 2014, then later worked as a trader and lived in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City.
According to the detainee, al-Halou kept Oron’s body in a freezer beneath his home, in one of three shops on the ground floor.
Israeli army investigations showed that its forces had previously entered the building but had not searched the freezer.
Officials quickly concluded that a loud military raid on the house was not an option, given the possible presence of living hostages nearby.
With no certainty about the accuracy of the information, it was decided to abduct al-Halou secretly, without alerting his surroundings, to prevent any relocation of the body.
Preparations then turned to deception. Intelligence officials learned that al-Halou had moved to a displaced persons camp in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza.
Israeli security services secretly contacted him and lured him into what he believed was a business arrangement. Unknowingly, al-Halou thus became an unintended tool.
He rented a warehouse near Salah al-Din Road and was trained to go there at regular and irregular times to receive goods.
As planning continued, the importance of the January ceasefire agreement became clear.
On January 15, Qatar announced an imminent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. At that time, a high-level Israeli delegation, including Mossad chief David Barnea, Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, and Major General (res.) Nitzan Alon, was in Doha finalizing the agreement, which was due to take effect on the morning of the 19th.
Under the agreement, 25 living Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others were returned.
Even before the agreement was signed, negotiators realized it was impossible to guarantee the return of the bodies of Oron and Hadar Goldin through it. At the same time, a plan was taking shape to recover the body of the former before the ceasefire began.
Execution of the operation
The operational phase began by persuading al-Halou to arrive at the warehouse at 11 p.m., where an elite unit was preparing to arrest him.
But al-Halou refused several times and turned back on the way, before finally being convinced.
At the very last moment, as the covert unit was approaching, the truck designated for the operation broke down. After tense minutes, the vehicle restarted and al-Halou was apprehended.
He initially denied everything, but after hours, and just as the ceasefire was about to begin, al-Halou broke down and admitted that the body was in an ice-cream freezer under his house.
As Israeli forces began withdrawing from some areas of Gaza, an unconventional idea was approved: sending a Palestinian collaborator alone to retrieve the body.
On the night of January 18–19, just hours before the ceasefire, the collaborator arrived silently at the house. Finding the freezer locked with a heavy padlock, he informed his Mossad supervisor, and the army decided to fire artillery at nearby open areas to mask the sounds.
Under the cover of the shelling, the collaborator broke the lock, found Shaul’s body, wrapped it in a carpet, and carried it for nearly a mile before meeting army forces.
The body was transported in armored vehicles belonging to the Golani Brigade, the unit in which Shaul Oron had served.
Who took part in the operation?
The General Security Service (Shin Bet).
Israeli Military Intelligence.
The Southern Command.
Elite units of the Israeli army
A Palestinian collaborator.
