Family of fallen soldier held by Hamas launches campaign for policy change
Video clip urges pressuring Hamas by denying benefits to prisoners until terror group returns remains of fallen servicemen
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
The family of a fallen IDF soldier whose remains are held by the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip launched a campaign Sunday calling on the government to change its tactics and increase pressure on Hamas.
The campaign by the family of Hadar Goldin comes amid media reports of progress in negotiations between Israel and Hamas via Egyptian mediators to reach a deal for a prisoner swap. Both sides have played down the extent of the progress.
A 2:40 minute video clip titled “Changing the Equation” explains the goal of the Courage Project, which calls for a shift in policy to secure the return of two Israeli soldiers, Oron Shaul and Goldin, believed to have been killed in the 2014 war in Gaza and their remains held by the Hamas rulers of the Strip.
In addition, three Israeli civilians are believed to have entered Gaza and to be held by Hamas.
They are Avraham Abera Mengistu, an Israeli Jew of Ethiopian descent, and two Muslim Bedouins, Hisham al-Sayed and Juma Ibrahim Abu Ghanima.
The cartoon video begins by discussing two approaches to dealing with Hamas, neither one of which has brought about the return of the missing soldiers: military might, as espoused by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman before the last elections — but much less so since — which is not a realistic option because Israel would rather avoid a war, or accepting Hamas’s vision that sees the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails in return for the missing Israelis.
Either way, the video asserts, no progress has been made. An alternative, a narrator suggests, is to “change the equation” so that Hamas no longer sees the fallen soldiers it holds as a valuable bargaining chip but rather as costly.
Pressure, the campaign asserts, can be applied by denying benefits to Hamas such as visits by family members from Gaza to prisoners held in Israel, medical services that Israel provides for Palestinians from the Strip, and the daily convoys of hundreds of trucks on average that bring supplies into the Palestinian enclave.
According to the video, the government has in theory already adopted the policy but never implemented it.
The video ends with a personal appeal by Tzur Goldin, brother of Hadar, for the public to support the Courage Project and encourage the government to change its approach.
Speaking to Army Radio Monday Simcha Goldin, father of Hadar Goldin, explained why he felt the campaign was needed.
“There is a lot of international pressure on Hamas,” Goldin said. “The only entity that isn’t applying pressure is Israel. We continue to send [supply] trucks. The prime minister said that if we touch the electricity in Gaza there will be mortars. We turned off the electricity — did they shoot mortars?”
Goldin was referring to an ongoing electricity crisis in Gaza, which has been under Hamas control since a bloody coup that ousted the Fatah party-dominated Palestinian Authority in 2007. As part of an internal Palestinian rivalry between Fatah and Hamas, the PA asked Israel to stop supplying electricity that Hamas wasn’t paying for, in an effort to pressure the Gaza rulers. Israel agreed although Egypt stepped in to truck fuel supplies, bringing the Gaza power station back on line.
Earlier Monday Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman repeated his denial that Israel was negotiating with Hamas for the release of the two fallen IDF soldiers. But, he said, unspecified efforts to return the bodies are “unceasing.”
“There is no breakthrough, period,” he said, disputing reports.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett said he would oppose releasing Hamas prisoners in exchange for the soldiers remains.
“The security of the citizens and soldiers of Israel requires us to vote in the cabinet against the release of terrorists for information, for the bodies of soldiers, since we must bring back our boys not with a deal, but with an attack,” said Bennett at the start of his Jewish Home faction meeting in the Knesset. “That is, by increasing the pressure on Hamas in Gaza and on its terrorists in Israeli prisons.”
In what appeared to show support for the Courage Project, Bennett paraphrased the campaign’s slogan.
“The time has come to change the equation and change the holding the bodies of abducted soldiers from an asset to a burden,” he said. “When they hold the bodies of our soldiers, each day should be more difficult [for Hamas] than the previous one.”
He said concessions to the terror group would only encourage it to kidnap other soldiers and urged Likud ministers to adopt his position.
