After more than a decade of waiting, Israel has officially received the remains of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, who was killed and taken by Hamas gunmen in an ambush in the Gaza Strip in August 2014. The Israeli military confirmed that Goldin, then 23, has been formally identified and will now be laid to rest. He leaves behind his parents, Simcha and Leah, a sister, two brothers, and his fiancée.
Goldin’s body was returned under the US-mediated truce agreement that began in mid-October, marking the end of more than two years of war between Israel and Gaza. Under the deal, Hamas delivered the last 20 surviving Israeli hostages and committed to handing over 28 sets of remains, including that of Goldin. His return, 4,118 days after the abduction, closes the longest-running hostage case since Israel’s 2007 withdrawal from Gaza.
Goldin was killed on August 1, 2014, just over an hour into a 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire during Operation Protective Edge. His unit, on patrol in the southern city of Rafah, was ambushed by Hamas fighters emerging from a tunnel. Two soldiers were killed, and Goldin was taken away. He became one of four Israelis held by Hamas for nearly a decade—alongside the remains of Oron Shaul and two civilians suffering from mental illness, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al‑Sayed.
Efforts to secure their return were stalled for years. Hamas demanded Israel free hundreds of prisoners—many convicted of deadly attacks—in exchange for the captives. Successive Israeli governments refused, arguing the price was too high for fallen soldiers and mentally ill civilians. Colonel (ret.) Doron Hadar, who worked on Goldin’s case for years, later said negotiations never came close to a viable agreement.
The 2011 release of Staff Sergeant Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners perhaps influenced Hamas’s expectations. Among those freed in that deal were Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Rawhi Mushtaha, who would later lead the group’s military operations and negotiations.
A painful dimension of the Goldin case was its low visibility within Israel. Unlike the massive public pressure that drove the Shalit campaign, the plight of Goldin, Shaul, Mengistu, and al-Sayed rarely stirred national mobilisation or government urgency. The Goldin family worked relentlessly to keep Hadar’s memory alive. His parents, Leah and Simcha, and his twin brother Tzur, established the Goldin Foundation and led frequent protests. In 2019, Simcha Goldin staged a demonstration outside the Knesset featuring an inflatable chicken to symbolise what he called government cowardice. In 2022, a march organised by the family from central Israel to the Gaza border drew fewer than a thousand participants.
The family accused Israeli leaders of moral failure for not exerting greater pressure on Hamas while allowing Gazan workers and reconstruction materials to enter Israel. A 2023 report by the Israeli State Comptroller seemed to validate their criticism, finding that the role of Israel’s chief hostage negotiator had never been formally defined.
The long-running stalemate also shaped Hamas’s strategic thinking. Hadar later argued that Israel’s inability to reach an agreement convinced Yahya Sinwar that Hamas could win major concessions only by capturing many more hostages. This reasoning must have influenced Hamas's strategy on October 7, 2023, when it abducted 251 people from Israel. The likely objective was to create maximum leverage to secure the release of senior prisoners and weaken Israeli morale.
Goldin’s case eventually became intertwined with the broader negotiations that followed those attacks. In January and February this year, the remains of Oron Shaul were recovered, and the two civilians, Mengistu and al-Sayed, were released along with other hostages taken on October 7. Hamas later announced that it had located Goldin’s body in a tunnel and transferred it to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The return was not without controversy. Reports suggested Hamas sought to condition the handover on safe passage for up to 200 Hamas operatives trapped in tunnels beneath Rafah. Although Israeli officials denied that the Benjamin Netanyahu government had approved any such arrangement, there are reports that US negotiators have asked Israel to permit the safe passage.
Hadar noted that Israel has now released most of the prisoners Hamas had sought for a decade—yet the exchange was achieved only after enormous bloodshed and under international mediation.
For the Goldin family, the return of Hadar’s remains after eleven years brings a measure of “important closure” and relief, allowing them at last to move on with their lives. His mother, Leah, described the long uncertainty as “a knife constantly making new cuts.” She said the fight to bring Hadar home reflected the “sacrosanct pact” between Israel and its soldiers. Hostages and Missing Families Forum spokesperson Lior Horev said Goldin and Shaul “paid the price” for Israel’s prolonged reluctance to confront Hamas more forcefully and its readiness to accept a temporary calm.
Notwithstanding the family’s criticism and accusations, Netanyahu appeared to take credit for the recovery, saying that he had always kept the photographs of Shaul and Goldin in his office. “We didn’t give up on bringing him home,” he said. I know the agony that his family’s been through, I know the longing for his return that united the people of Israel, and today we’re united in bringing him finally to his parents, to his family, to a grave in Israel.”
