Gazan soccer game depicted as battle between dead IDF soldiers
Images of Hadar Goldin and Oren Shaul, whose bodies were not recovered after last summer’s war, displayed on posters of two rival teams from areas where they were killed

Promoters of a Sunday soccer final in the Gaza Strip used images of dead Israeli soldiers whose bodies have not been recovered from Gaza in posters to advertise the event, playing on the fact that the two soldiers were killed in the home neighborhoods of the contesting soccer teams.
Photographs of IDF soldiers Lt. Hadar Goldin and Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul were displayed on banners and posters for the game between Khadamat Rafah and Itehad Shejaiya.
The two soldiers were killed in 2014 during the summer war in Gaza. Their bodies are believed to be held by Hamas.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up
The poster for the game announces that “the two pillars of the kidnapped soldiers are at the end of the Gaza Strip Cup.”

On July 20, 2014, Shaul was one of seven Israeli soldiers critically wounded when, amid fierce battles in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, his armored personnel carrier, stuck in the middle of a city street, was hit by a Hamas anti-tank rocket. The army was able to recover the remains of six soldiers but found no trace of Shaul.
Goldin was killed in a surprise attack on August 1, 2014, as a temporary ceasefire during the 7-week conflict was due to begin, and his body was dragged into a tunnel by Gazan fighters.
Gaza-based sources claimed 2,100 Palestinians were killed and tens of thousands more left homeless as the IDF battled against Hamas in the coastal enclave in July and August 2014, dubbed Operation Protective Edge.

Israel, which lost 66 soldiers and six civilians in the conflict, said half the Palestinians killed were combatants and that the high civilian toll in Gaza was due to fighters there embedding their military infrastructure in residential areas.
In April 2015 Ruhi Mushtaha, a senior Hamas official who was released from prison as part of a deal that secured freedom for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, said “Hamas will not reveal anything about the fate of the soldiers missing in Gaza without a price,” indicating that Hamas intends to use the missing soldiers as bargaining chips with Israel.
In October 2011, Israel swapped 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who was held captive by Hamas for five years.

I’ll tell you the truth: Life here in Israel isn’t always easy. But it's full of beauty and meaning.
I'm proud to work at The Times of Israel alongside colleagues who pour their hearts into their work day in, day out, to capture the complexity of this extraordinary place.
I believe our reporting sets an important tone of honesty and decency that's essential to understand what's really happening in Israel. It takes a lot of time, commitment and hard work from our team to get this right.
Your support, through membership in The Times of Israel Community, enables us to continue our work. Would you join our Community today?
Thank you,
Sarah Tuttle Singer, New Media Editor
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we come to work every day - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
comments