Israeli Army Calls Medium To Find Soldier

NETANYA, Israel — The Israeli armed forces have resorted to using a medium to try to locate the corporal who was spirited into Gaza by Palestinian Arab militants on June 25 and who has not been heard from since.

Despite covering every inch of the Gaza Strip with surveillance drones and having an extensive informer network, Israeli intelligence has failed to yield the whereabouts of 20-year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit. So the army has deployed a 41-year-old mother of three who earns a living as a medium. Orit Tomer Ish Yemini says she discovered the skill in her late teens when her much-loved grandfather died only to appear to her repeatedly in dreams.

"He acted as a sort of guide, coming to me in my dreams and showing me things about relatives who were going to get married or friends who were struggling to have babies," she said from her home in Israel's seaside town of Netanya. Aware that the use of a medium smacks of desperation, the army has officially refused to acknowledge that it has worked with Mrs.Tomer Ish Yemini. But the Daily Telegraph spoke to one of two officers who visited her house armed with maps and paperwork to ask for her help to locate the corporal, whose capture precipitated a major Middle East crisis.