Rafi Eitan, the Mossad agent who led the Israeli team that captured Nazi Adolf Eichmann, has died aged 92.
Eitan commanded an eight-man team who flew to Argentina in 1960 and spirited Eichmann back to Israel to stand trial.
He is seen as one of the fathers of Israel’s intelligence services.
Eichmann was one of the principal architects of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany’s systematic extermination of six million Jewish people. He was found guilty and hanged in 1962.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called Eitan “one of the heroes of Israeli intelligence” and said he was a “close personal friend”.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin described him as “a born fighter who stuck to his mission and to what he knew to be right”.
We have lost a brave fighter whose contribution to Israel’s security will be taught for generations to come. Rafi Eitan was a born fighter who stuck to his mission and to what he knew to be right. Our heads are bowed today in his memory, and in deep appreciation,
Eitan was born on a kibbutz in the former British Mandate of Palestine to a family of Russian immigrants in 1926, growing up in Ramat Hasharon, north of Tel Aviv.
He was injured fighting in Israel’s war of independence in 1948. After his release from the army, he joined the domestic intelligence service Shin Bet where he thrived and was named head of central operations for Shin Bet and Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service.
He died at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv on Saturday. He was married to Miriam, with whom he had three children.
