"Israel will not stay silent and the residents of Gaza will not know peace until the Israelis [held captive] in the Gaza Strip are home and our fallen soldiers are laid to rest in Israel!" Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai wrote on the COGAT Arabic-language Facebook page Sunday.
In the post, Mordechai confirmed reports that Israel is holding the bodies of two terrorists who were killed in Friday's march along the Gaza-Israel border. The event turned violent, and 17 Palestinians – including 10 known terrorists – were killed. Another 1,400 demonstrators were wounded in clashes with Israeli forces.
"The bodies of Masab Salul, a terrorist operative from Zawida, and Mohammed Rabaya, [both] terrorists who were armed with rifles and a bomb who tried to carry out a terrorist attack in Israel on Friday, join the 24 other bodies Israel has been holding from Operation Protective Edge [in summer 2014] and the Islamic Jihad terror tunnels Israel blew up in our territory in October 2017," Mordechai wrote.
"The Hamas terrorist organization, which rules Gaza, does not care about the living or the dead. It prevents the dead from having an Islamic burial," Mordechai's post continued.
Mordechai pointed out in his post that Judaism and Islam both placed importance on proper burial for the fallen.
"Residents of Gaza – Hamas is robbing you of the right to pray for your sons," he wrote.
Meanwhile, the family of Lt. Hadar Goldin, whose body has been held captive by Hamas since he was killed in Operation Protective Edge, contacted the government and the security establishment on Sunday with a renewed demand that they implement a decision by the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet not to return terrorists' bodies until Hamas releases the Israeli captives and the remains of their son and fellow fallen soldier Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul, whose body has also been held since the 2014 war.
"Israel must use the [terrorists'] bodies as a bargaining chip against Hamas and hold them until a solution can be found and our soldiers brought home," said bereaved father Simcha Goldin.
Also on Sunday, the family of Avera Mengistu, an Israeli who has been held captive in Gaza since he crossed the border in September of 2014, set up a protest tent outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem. The family and a number of activists campaigning for Mengistu's freedom plan to remain in the tent for the entire week of the Passover holiday.
