Leah Goldin, the mother of Hadar Goldin, an Israeli soldier who was killed in battle during Israel's war on Gaza in 2014 and whose body has been held by Hamas since, accused Israeli officials of not doing enough to bring her son home.
Recently, Hamas, the Islamist group controlling the Gaza Strip, released fresh information and photos about the battle in which Lt. Hadar Goldin was killed. The announcement came on the ninth anniversary of the capture of the Israeli soldier. The al-Qassam brigades, the military wing of Hamas, released pictures of a military identification tag and a rifle suggesting that they belonged to Hadar Goldin.
On 1 August 2014, the Israeli army penetrated some two kilometres east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The al-Qassam brigades said its "elite" fighting corps had ambushed three Israeli soldiers, killing two during the battle. The fate of the third Israeli soldier, however, was left unmentioned.
During an interview with I24, Leah Goldin indicated that people abroad were more willing to work on releasing her son's body than Israeli officials.
"I work very hard to bring him home because the ones that sent him to Gaza exactly 9 nine years ago are not doing it. They just leave him behind so it became my job to bring my son home from the battlefield", she said.
Hamas is thought to hold the remains of at least two Israeli soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, both captured in the 2014 Gaza war. Avera Mengistu and Hisham Al-Sayed were captured after the war.
A prisoner exchange deal between the two sides remains elusive.
Israel began its attack on the Gaza Strip on July 8, 2014. The fighting lasted until August 26, 2014.
UN figures put the death toll at 2,251 on the Palestinian side, including 1,462 civilians. Of those, 551 were children, and 299 were women.
On the Israeli side, the fighting claimed the lives of seventy-three Israelis, among them 67 soldiers.