Activists to march for release of Gaza hostages

The event, which will begin in Kfar Saba on August 3rd and end on the Gaza border on the 5th, is the initiative of the Goldin family.

Rally to return bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul in Operation Guardians of the Walls ceasefire.  (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Rally to return bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul in Operation Guardians of the Walls ceasefire.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)

Activists plan to hold a three-day march next week to pressure the government to secure the release of two Gaza hostages and the bodies of two others.

“The current government, like its predecessors, acts in a lazy and morally bankrupt way toward its own people,” said the organizers of the march.

The event, which will begin in Kfar Saba on August 3 and end on the Gaza border on August 5, is the initiative of the Goldin family.

Their son Hadar is presumed to have been killed during the 2014 Gaza War. Hamas is holding his body and that of another soldier, Oron Shaul, also killed in the Gaza War.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli citizens captive, Hisham Al-Sayed who entered Gaza in April 2015 and Avera Mengistu who crossed into the Strip in April 2014.

 (TOP) A fighter from the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, is seen inside an underground tunnel, in Gaza, August 18, 2014.  (credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS)
(TOP) A fighter from the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, is seen inside an underground tunnel, in Gaza, August 18, 2014. (credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS)

Last month Hamas published a video of Hisham and warned that he was in poor health.

March's organizers

Last month Hamas published a video of Hisham and warned that he was in poor health.

Organizers of the march have focused on this summer marking eight years since Mengistu was kidnapped and the bodies of Goldin and Shaul have been held.

“Eight years in a row that the Israeli governments have given up on the fighters Oron and Hadar,” the organizers said.

The government has taken steps to ease conditions for Gaza such as work permits and the entry of reconstitution materials rather than exerting pressure on Hamas, the organizers said.


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The Goldin family has long advocated that Israel halt all assistance to Palestinians in Gaza until the captives are released.

This latest campaign by the Goldin family comes as Israeli heads into its fifth election campaign in less than four years.