The family of Staff Sergeant Shaul Oron has accused the Israeli government and army of withholding information relating to his whereabouts, Quds Press reported on Wednesday. Oron has been declared “officially dead”, but his family have been trying for two years to obtain documents from the Israeli courts to this effect, with no success.
“The family is afraid that the Israeli army is hiding serious information about the whereabouts of its son,” the family lawyer was quoted by Yedioth Ahranoth. Family members are suspicious, given that he was declared “dead” immediately after he disappeared during the Israeli offensive on Gaza in 2014. A special committee led by the Chief Rabbi of the Israel Defence Forces announced that the staff sergeant was “a soldier killed in action whose burial site is unknown.”
The lawyer said that the family have been requesting copies of the documents of the court meetings, which lasted for five consecutive days before the announcement of Oron’s death. He also said that the family has warned that it will appeal to the court if it does not get the documents it has been seeking.
Oron’s mother apparently suspects that there were political reasons behind the swift announcement of her son’s death. She pointed out that if he was declared to have been kidnapped or otherwise lost, this would make it difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to announce his military achievements to the Israeli public.