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by Barney Breen-Portnoy
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin shows US President Donald Trump pictures of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin during Trump’s May 2017 visit to Israel. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The parents of an IDF soldier who was killed in the Gaza Strip four years ago and whose body was seized by Hamas are urging US President Donald Trump to act to bring their son’s remains home to Israel.
Simha and Leah Goldin — the parents of the late Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, who was 23 when he died in battle in Rafah during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014 — have organized a petition to the White House, with the hope of drawing the president’s attention to their plight and that of the family of another fallen IDF soldier, Staff Sergeant Oron Shaul, who was killed earlier in the war and whose body was also taken by Gaza-ruling Hamas.
“In August 2014, the United States and the United Nations brokered a humanitarian ceasefire to a conflict between Israel and Gaza,” the petition recalled. “Shortly into this ceasefire, Hamas terrorists murdered three Israeli soldiers and abducted IDF Lt. Hadar Goldin into Gaza. He and fellow fallen soldier Sgt. Oron Shaul have been held by Hamas, in direct and standing violation of international human rights law.”
“We implore President Trump to bring closure to the ongoing consequences of the egregious violation of the humanitarian ceasefire brokered by the previous American administration,” the petition went on to say. “We request that the Trump administration and Congress refrain from providing aid of any kind to the Palestinian Authority and Gaza until Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul are returned to their families for proper burial.”
The Goldins are seeking to get 100,000 signatures on the petition by the end of December.
In an interview with The Algemeiner last year, Leah Goldin called her son’s return a matter of “human dignity.”
“Bringing a soldier back to Israel to burial is, first and foremost, a humanitarian issue,” she said. “This is an important value in all religions.”
Speaking with The Algemeiner this past February, Shaul’s mother, Zehava, called on the international community to “do everything possible, pressure Hamas, pressure also the Israeli government, pressure whoever you want — the main thing is that Oron comes home.”
