The parents of murdered soldier Hadar Goldin spoke to the press Wednesday, marking nearly one year since Goldin was killed and his body abducted by Hamas.
"I was in a fish shop and I heard that something happened and someone was kidnapped," Simcha Goldin, Hadar\’s father, recounted in a specialWalla! News interview. "As soon as I got home the IDF commander for the city was speaking with my wife. They announced that Hadar was missing and then explained that he was probably kidnapped."
Simcha explained the difficult decision to break Shabbat (Sabbath) to see what was happening with their son.
"We continued as usual until noon that day, we prayed for him to be returned, but no one from the army would give us any answers," he said. "We decided to push aside Shabbat due to pikuach nefesh, the commandment to save lives, and we opened our laptops and saw that the IDF was leaving Gaza […] so we went to the press and stated that Israel could not abandon our son in Gaza if he were kidnapped."
"On that Saturday night, after midnight, we found out that Hadar had been killed and that his body had been kidnapped."
Simcha stated that Hadar was not one to go without a fight, and praised the IDF for attempting to rescue him under the assumption he was still alive. The real blame, he said, lies with the US and the UN.
"Hadar and his friends have been killed because of a cease-fire," he said, blaming specifically US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon for placing pressure on Israel. "And I\’m very disappointed in the American Secretary of State, three fatalities are on his conscience."
Regarding Hamas, "it has been accepted since the times of AncientGreece that nations return bodies after a battle," he said. "Only Hamas would think they could put a price on them."
Goldin, a first lieutenant in the Givati Brigade, was killed on August 1, 2014 at the height of the operation after Hamas terrorists breached one of several ceasefires to attack his unit on the outskirts of the city of Rafa