Rafi Eitan, the legendary Israeli spy who led the operation to capture the architect of the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann, has died aged 92.

Eitan died after being hospitalised in Tel Aviv, Israeli media reported.

“Rafi was among the heroes of the intelligence services of the State of Israel on countless missions on behalf of the security of Israel,” prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “His wisdom, wit and commitment to the people of Israel and our state were without peer.”

Eitan was among the founders of Israel’s revered intelligence agencies.

“We have lost a brave fighter whose contribution to Israel’s security will be taught for generations to come,” president Reuven Rivlin said.

Remembering the Holocaust Show all 16 1 /16 Remembering the Holocaust Remembering the Holocaust 80,000 shoes line a display case in Auschwitz I. The shoes of those who had been sent to their deaths were transported back to Germany for use of the Third Reich Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust Barracks for prisoners in the vast Auschwitz II (Birkenau) camp. Here slept as many as four per bunk, translating to around one thousand people per barracks. The barracks were never heated in winter, so the living space of inmates would have been the same temperature as outside. Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust Sign for the Auschwitz Museum on the snowy streets of Oswiecim, Poland Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust The Gateway to hell: The Nazi proclamation that work will set you free, displayed on the entrance gate of Auschwitz I Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust A disused watchtower, surveying a stark tree-lined street through Auschwitz I concentration camp Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust Stolen property of the Jews: Numerous spectacles, removed from the possession of their owners when they were selected to die in the gas chambers of Auschwitz Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust A sign bearing a skull and crossbones barks an order to a person to stop beside the once-electrified fences which reinforced the Auschwitz I camp Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust The peace and the evil: Flower tributes line a section of wall which was used for individual and group executions Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust Life behind bars: Nazi traps set to hold the Third Reich’s ‘enemies’. In Auschwitz’s years of operation, there were around three hundred successful escapes. A common punishment for an escape attempt was death by starvation Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust Burying the evidence: Remains of one of the several Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust The three-way railway track at the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. This was the first sight the new camp arrivals saw upon completion of their journey. Just beside the tracks, husbands and wives, sons and daughters and brothers and sisters were torn from each other. Most never saw their relatives again Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust A group of visitors move through the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Viewed from the main entrance watchtower of Auschwitz-Birkenau Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust "The Final Solution": The scale of the extermination efforts of the Nazis at Auschwitz-Birkenau can be seen by comparing the scale of the two figures at the far left of the image to the size of the figure to the left of the railway tracks' three point split Hannah Bills Remembering the Holocaust Each cattle car would transport up to one hundred people, who could come from all over Europe, sometimes from as far away as Norway or Greece. Typically, people would have been loaded onto the trucks with around three days food supply. The journey to Auschwitz could sometimes take three weeks. Hannah Bills

In 1960, Eitan led the Mossad operation to capture Eichmann in Argentina and bring him to trial in Jerusalem.

Known for his role in coordinating the Nazi’s genocide policy, Eichmann had fled Germany after the Second World War and was living under an assumed identity.

Eitan, who led a seven-man team on the ground, snatched Eichmann on the way back to his home in Buenos Aires, bundled him into a car and spirited him away to a safe house.

Eitan identified Eichmann by searching his body for distinctive scars on his arms and stomach. ”And once I felt it I was convinced. This is the man — we got Eichmann,” he recalled years later.

Rafi Eitan stands next to a showcase during an exhibition about Adolf Eichmann’s capture (AP/Sebastian Scheiner) (AP)

Mossad director Yossi Cohen said the majority of Eitan’s exploits still remain unknown to the general public.

“His work and his actions will be etched in gold letters in the annals of the state,” Mr Cohen said in a statement on Saturday. “The foundations that Rafi laid in the first years of the state are a significant layer in the activities of the Mossad even today.”

However, Eitan’s reputation took a hit in the 1980s over his handling of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy who sold military secrets to Israel while working at the Pentagon.

Pollard pleaded guilty after being arrested in 1985 and was sentenced in 1987 to life imprisonment, in a trial that embarrassed Israel and damaged its relations with the US.

Eitan was eventually forced to resign his post over the affair.

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