Hadar Goldin comes home: the IDF officer held in Gaza for 4,118 days

After nearly 11 years, Lieutenant Hadar Goldin has finally been brought home to Israel.

Military representatives informed his family overnight that his body had been returned by Hamas, more than 4,000 days after he was killed and abducted in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Forensic experts confirmed his identification earlier today, ending one of Israel’s longest and most painful national ordeals.

Goldin, a platoon commander in the Givati Brigade, was killed on 1 August 2014, just minutes after a UN-brokered 72-hour ceasefire took effect. Hamas fighters ambushed his unit near Rafah, killing two comrades — Major Benaya Sarel and Staff Sergeant Liel Gidoni — before dragging Goldin’s body through a tunnel into Gaza.

For more than a decade, Hamas refused to return his remains, despite repeated appeals from Israel and international mediators. His body was held for 4,118 days.

Hamas said yesterday that the remains were retrieved from a tunnel in Rafah, within an IDF-held area of the Strip. The body was transferred to the Red Cross, which handed it to Israeli forces and escorted it to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv for examination.

Born in Kfar Saba in 1991, Goldin was both a soldier and an artist. A Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design graduate, he filled sketchbooks during his service that revealed a quiet depth and sensitivity. His work has been exhibited in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and New York.

His parents, Professor Simcha and Dr Leah Goldin, founded the Hadar Goldin Foundation, leading an international campaign for the return of his body and to ensure Israel fulfils its moral obligation to bring home every soldier.

“Hadar gave his life protecting the people of Israel. All we ask is to bring him home to rest,” said Dr Leah Goldin.

In January, Professor Simcha Goldin warned that Israel’s leadership had “failed in its moral duty,” saying: “We have consistently warned that leadership willing to abandon fallen soldiers will inevitably abandon wounded personnel and living hostages. This represents our current reality.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who described Israel’s commitment to retrieving its fallen as “a sacred duty to return our sons to Israel for burial in our land” after the recovery of soldier Oron Shaul earlier this year, said the government “shares in the deep sorrow of the Goldin family and of all the families of the fallen hostages.”

The Prime Minister’s Office added that Israel remains “determined, committed, and working tirelessly” to bring back the remaining four slain hostages for burial – three Israelis and one Thai national: Meny Godard, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, Dror Or and Sudthisak Rinthalak.

For the Goldins, this moment brings to an end an eleven-year vigil and fulfils the promise at the heart of Israel’s military ethos – that no soldier is ever left behind.

Hadar Goldin will be laid to rest in a military ceremony in the coming days.