Missing Soldiers, "Our Sons"

There's a legendary motto in the IDF that nobody is left behind. But the truth is that we have lost soldiers. Some Israeli soldiers may have been kept alive in enemy prisons, and some had been killed, but their bodies were never returned to us for proper burial. Right now, I'm not talking about those killed and missing in our earliest wars, when we had very little control over things. I'm referring to a couple of relatively recent incidents.

The family of Hadar Goldin, HaYa"D, has been campaigning for a radical change in Israeli policy, which would Gd willing convince the Arab terrorists to return his body and that of  back to Israel for a Jewish burial.

The animated video explained the situation of Hamas holding their son's remains captive while criticizing the Israeli government and their approach to dealing with the terrorist organization.......The Goldin family claims that in order for their son's body to stop being an asset to Hamas, Israel needs to stop "giving Hamas candies."(complete article)

I agree with everything the Goldin family is saying. In the meantime the movie is just in Hebrew, but I think that it's pretty easy to get the general idea just from the pictures.

Project Oz

There's also a facebook page in Hebrew, Hadar Sheli, My Hadar.

More Pain for the Family of Oron Shaul

ברוך דיין האמת Baruch Dayan Ha'emet, Blessed is the True Judge...

Oron Shaul's parents: photo by Eliran Aharon

Herzl, the father of "missing" IDF soldier Oron Shaul, has passed away from cancer.

Oron Shaul, HaYa"D, with father
photo credit

Oron Shaul, HaYa"D, with mother
photo credit

For over two years, Hamas has refused to release Oron Shaul's body. And although Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has repeatedly promised to do everything to get the body... nada... nothing. And in the meantime, the Israeli Government continuously releases to families the bodies of dead Arab terrorists, including those who murdered innocent Jews.

There was a time when Israel prided itself on not leaving IDF bodies behind...

Why Hasn't Israel Pushed Harder to Get IDF Bodies Returned?

According to Jewish Tradition, one is to be very careful and caring of the dead Jewish body.

• It is to be washed in a specific, gentle and ritualistic way, tahara.
• The body is not to be just stuffed in a  morgue refrigerator. There should be a guard who will say certain prayer while waiting for burial, shmira. 
• Burial should be as soon after death as possible, preferably even the same day. 

Related to this is that one of the IDF's paramount principles was never to leave a soldier's body in the field. That was even if it would endanger the rescuing soldiers.

So how is it that the Israeli Government hasn't succeeded in rescuing/returning the bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul after two long years?

“The time has come for the Israeli government to internalize the fact that it has the ability to put Hamas under a great deal of pressure to return Oron and Hadar,” the Goldin family said.
The family added that the return of terrorists’ bodies should be conditioned on the return of the bodies of the two fallen IDF soldiers.

During this time period bodies of Arab terrorists have been handed over to their families. There is no reason to do so. We must first demand that our soldiers' remains be returned, and only after genetic testing proves that they have been, may we return Arab terrorist bodies.