Noam Shalit, father of captive Israeli soldier, dies at 68

Noam Shalit, the father of a captive Israeli soldier who battled for five years to free his son from his Hamas captors, has died

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Noam Shalit, the father of a captive Israeli soldier who battled for five years to free his son from his Hamas captors, has died. He was 68.

A spokesman for Rambam hospital in northern Israel said Shalit died late Wednesday of cancer.

The reclusive Shalit, the father of three from a quiet village in northern Israel, was catapulted into the national spotlight after his son, Gilad was captured, emerging as the public face of the campaign to free him. He rallied the nation around his crusade, morphing his son’s plight into a national obsession that eventually saw then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ok a lopsided prisoner exchange for Gilad’s release.

Palestinian militants abducted the wounded Gilad, then 19, from his tank in June 2006 in a brazen cross-border infiltration from Gaza. He was held captive for five years in a Gaza basement, kept in isolation, barred from having visitors and seen only once, in a scripted video released by his captors to prove he was alive. He was released in 2011 after Israel agreed to free more than 1,000 prisoners.