Israel: hostage families turn to UN and ICRC for help

The families of four Israelis held hostage in Gaza since 2014 and 2015 visited Geneva on Wednesday to ask for help from the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to get their loved ones or their remains returned to Israel. This was apparently the first time that the families have made such an approach together.

The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement is believed to be holding the remains of two Israeli soldiers, Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, who are thought to have been killed during the 2014 Israeli military offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Palestinian enclave of their own accord: Avera Mengistu, a Jew of Ethiopian origin, and Hisham Al-Sayed, a Bedouin Muslim, entered Gaza in 2014 and 2015 respectively, and are believed to be alive. According to Israel, they both have mental health problems.

“Information about my son held in Gaza for the last nine years? Zero,” Leah Goldin, the mother of one of the two soldiers, told AFP. “I’m here in Geneva, where all the human rights issues are discussed… It is time for action.”

The fate of the missing soldiers is a particularly sensitive topic in Israel, as the vast majority of young Jewish citizens, male and female, have to complete compulsory military service. In recent years, several attempts have been made to exchange the civilians and the remains of the two soldiers for Palestinian prisoners.

READ: ICRC urges Israel to release Palestinian detainee’s body

However, for Ofek Shaul, only one thing matters after all these years of waiting. “I want my brother. I don’t care how. I just want him; I just want him with me.”

Goldin’s son was reportedly killed on 1 August 2014, just hours after a truce came into effect. She suggested that the international community should “flip the equation” and that humanitarian aid should be sent to Gaza on condition of the return of her son’s remains, as a confidence-building measure. “I am not saying that all humanitarian aid should stop, but that it should be used as leverage.”

The ICRC noted that the talks are confidential, but confirmed that the families of missing persons whether Israeli or Palestinian, “have the right to know the fate of their relatives,” and “their pain grows sharper” as years go by. “The remains of those killed during the conflict must be identified, handled with dignity, and returned to their families.”

The family of Mengistu, who disappeared on 7 September 2014, feels helpless. In January this year, Hamas released an undated video of Mengistu but his mother, Agarnesh Mengistu, told AFP that she was not sure if it was him. “The most difficult for me is to understand why Hamas doesn’t show any mercy for my son,” she said. Despite this being her third trip to Geneva, however, she remains hopeful.

Al-Sayed’s parents went to Geneva to seek help from the international community after trying to organise negotiations through the Bedouin communities. His father, Shaaban Al-Sayed, told AFP that those efforts had failed. “We came here as a last resort with the hope that the UN bodies here in Geneva will help us to bring him home after eight years.”

Although talks about the captives have been held through intermediaries for a number of years, Hamas threatened to close the case of these four Israelis “forever” last December if no prisoner exchange can be arranged with the occupation state. Israel holds more than 4,000 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children; hundreds of them are in prison with neither charge nor trial under so-called administrative detention.