Israel receives Hadar Goldin’s body after 11 years

Israel on Sunday received the body of Lt. Hadar Goldin whose body was held by Hamas in Gaza for over eleven years, the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem announced.

The evening news which riveted a nation culminated a decade-long family struggle to bring the young soldier’s remains back home to Israel for burial after he was killed and abducted by the terrorist group in Gaza during a 2014 ceasefire following an earlier war.

Four more bodies are still being held in Gaza, including three Israelis — Meny Godard, Sgt. Ran Gvili and Dror Or, as well as a Thai foreign national, Sudthisak Rinthalak, who was working in agriculture in Israel at the time of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack.

“The Israeli government shares in the deep sorrow of the Goldin family and of all the families of the fallen hostages,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

The PMO says that Israel is “determined, committed, and working tirelessly” to bring back the remaining four slain hostages for burial, adding that Hamas is “required to fulfill its commitments to the mediators and return them as part of the implementation of the agreement.”

Hamas said that it found Goldin’s remains in a tunnel in the southernmost city of Rafah on Saturday. Goldin was killed on Aug. 1, 2014, two hours after a ceasefire took effect in that year’s war between Israel and Hamas.

“Israel has received, via the Red Cross, the coffin of a fallen hostage, which was handed over to an IDF and ISA [Shin Bet] force inside the Gaza Strip,” the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem announced.

After being handed over to Israeli troops inside the Strip on Sunday afternoon, the coffin was brought to Israel, where it was received in a military ceremony with the participation of IDF Chief Rabbi Brig. Gen. Eyal Moshe Kri.

The remains were then transferred to the Health Ministry’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv were they were later identified by the evening.

“All of the hostages’ families have been updated accordingly, and our hearts are with them in this difficult hour,” the Prime Minister’s Office stated, adding, “The effort to return our hostages is ongoing and will not cease until the last hostage is returned.”

In a separate statement, the IDF said that Hamas terrorists are “required to uphold the [ceasefire] agreement and take the necessary steps to return all the deceased hostages.”

The military also requested that the public “act with sensitivity and wait for official identification, which will first be communicated to the families of the deceased hostages.”

The Red Cross team was dispatched shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Hamas was slated to return the body of IDF Lt. Hadar Goldin, 11 years after he was killed in action during the 2014 Gaza war (“Operation Protective Edge”).

“Yesterday, Hamas announced that it is holding the body of Lt. Hadar Goldin, of blessed memory. We are supposed to receive the body later this afternoon,” Netanyahu told reporters at the weekly Cabinet meeting.

“Throughout these years, we made great efforts in Israel’s governments to bring him back,” he stated, noting the “deep anguish of his family, who will now have the privilege of bringing him to burial in Israel.

“We said at the beginning of this war that we would bring back all the hostages, without exception,” the premier said. “So far, we have brought back 250. We will bring everyone home.”

Earlier on Sunday, Hamas announced it would return Goldin’s body around 2 p.m., after the terrorist group made a similar announcement the previous day but failed to follow through.

A senior Israeli political official condemned the delay in a statement to Israel Hayom on Sunday morning, saying that Jerusalem “demands his immediate return” and viewed Hamas’s actions with “utmost severity.”

Goldin, an officer in the Givati Infantry Brigade, was killed and his body was taken during fighting near the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city of Rafah during “Operation Protective Edge” on Aug. 1, 2014.

After Hamas said that it had located the slain soldier’s body on Saturday, the Goldin family issued a statement: “An entire nation is waiting for Hadar to be brought home. This is a mission that must and can be fulfilled for the sake of all of us. The IDF chief of staff came to update us after Shabbat on the tremendous efforts being made to bring back the hostages, and we salute everyone involved in this national mission. We are waiting for official confirmation that Hadar has returned to Israel.

“No one in this country is ever left behind. We ask everyone to stay calm. Until it’s final, it isn’t over.”

During his visit to the Goldin family in Kfar Saba, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen Eyal Zamir “reiterated his personal and the IDF’s commitment to bringing back Hadar and all the fallen hostages, and emphasized the importance of restraint at these sensitive moments, until his arrival and the completion of the necessary checks and verification,” the military said.

© JNS