By YOSSI MELMAN
Twelve years ago David Meidan, an Israeli intelligence officer, found himself standing just metres away from one of Israel’s most-wanted enemies. Across the corridor of the Egyptian intelligence headquarters in Cairo, he had caught a glimpse of Ahmed Jabari, then the military leader of Hamas. Meidan was in Cairo to try to secure the release of Gilad Shalit, a young Israeli corporal captured by Hamas in 2006. Israeli law forbade him from talking directly to Jabari – Egyptian intelligence officers shuttled messages between his room and the adjacent one where the Palestinian delegation were. Meidan remembers thinking Jabari looked tough.
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