'We get no support from the government or public'

Family of Israeli held in Gaza sent video to Hamas begging for his release

Physicians for Human Rights Israel aid group passed the clip, along with documents proving Avera Mengistu’s mental illness, to the terror group in 2016

By ToI Staff 26 July 2018, 4:32 pm

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Avraham Avera Mengistu, undated. (Courtesy of the Mengistu family via AP)

The family of Avera Mengistu, an Israeli held by Hamas in Gaza since September 2014, appealed to the terror group to release him in a video handed to Hamas officials in late 2016, it was revealed Wednesday.

The video, made by the family, along with documents detailing Mengistu’s history of mental illness, were given to Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, roughly two years ago.

The materials were handed over to the group by a delegation from the Physicians for Human Rights aid group, which said it had been told by Hamas, but could not independently confirm, that the video had reached those who are holding Mengistu, and had even been seen by Mengistu himself.

In the video, Mengistu’s mother Agranash and brother Ilan, speaking Amharic and Hebrew with Arabic subtitles, beg the terror group to release him.

“It’s not possible that the hearts of Hamas officials don’t curdle when they hear this,” Agranash said. “My son Avera entered Gaza by accident, because he was ill. Why won’t Hamas release him? He hasn’t seen a doctor or received the medical care he needs. We’re out of ideas. I want to see him, and if I have to, I’ll go to him. I’m asking, people of Hamas, show him to me, let him go.”

Ilan Mengistu said in the video that the family “has been in pain, worried, heartbroken for two years now.”

“Every day I see my mother cry and say to me, ‘Where’s my son, who I raised with all my heart no matter how hard it was, in Ethiopia and here in Israel?’ She asks me every day, ‘Why do they hold him? What could they achieve with him? He isn’t a soldier, he didn’t go to hurt anyone. He’s the child of a poor and miserable family.'”

Ilan adds: “I have no answer for her. As a family we get no support, not from the government and not from the public.”

PHR said it has been working with Gaza health officials to obtain information about Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, a Bedouin Israeli man also held by Hamas in Gaza who is reportedly also struggling with mental illness.

Israeli officials say they are working to secure the release of Mengistu ad al-Sayed, along with the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in the 2014 war in Gaza, which are also believed to be held by Hamas.