Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Brigadier General (Res.) Gal Hirsch as the person in charge of captives and missing persons. All government ministries will be subject to his directives on this matter. According to estimates by Hamas, there are over 100 Israeli citizens who were abducted during the surprise attack.
It should be noted that in the past ten months, since the current government was formed, this position remained vacant.
Brigadier General Hirsch served as the commander of the Shaldag unit, the commander of the IDF's 1st Division, and the commander of the Galilee Division during the Second Lebanon War until his retirement in 2006 following the recommendations of the Almog Commission.
In 2012, he returned to serve in the IDF and was appointed as the Deputy Commander of the HaOmek Corps, a position he held until 2015. Starting in 2020 until May 2023, Hirsch served as the President of NEWSRAEL, a company engaged in pro-Israeli communications activities worldwide.
Today, he serves as a senior fellow at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism Policy and as a lecturer in national security at Reichman University.