Father of Israeli captive calls on Knesset to retrieve his son

Simcha Goldin, father of the Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin who was captured by Palestinian resistance fighters during Israel’s 2014 aggression on the Gaza Strip, called on the Israeli Knesset to press Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to return his captive son.

Israel’s Channel 7 reported Goldin as saying: “For two and a half years, the Knesset and the government haven’t done anything. We hope now that the Knesset will push the government to do what is necessary so that Hadar will be brought [back for a] Jewish burial.”

Goldin made his remarks at a Knesset meeting marking the establishment of a pressure group to bring back captured Israeli soldiers. “We have come to encourage the members of Knesset to influence the government to do its duty,” Goldin said.

Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said that they had captured a number of Israeli soldiers, refusing to provide any information about their number or status or any other information until Israel releases Palestinian prisoners that it had freed then later detained as part of an earlier prison swap deal.