Leah Goldin in Supreme Court
Leah Goldin in Supreme CourtFlash 90

The family of Lt. Hadar Goldin, whose body is being held by Hamas in Gaza, submitted an urgent petition to the Supreme Court today demanding an interim order regarding the government's decision to release the bodies of terrorists who carried out attacks against Israeli citizens, police, and soldiers.

The petition was filed on behalf of the family by legal advisors Prof. Aviad Hacohen, Atty. Oded Savorai and the legal clinics at Shaarei Mishpat College.

The family bases the petition on the decision of the Political-Security Cabinet of January 2017, stating that Israel will hold terrorist bodies that "carried out a particularly exceptional terrorist incident" and "terrorist bodies belonging to Hamas."

Leah Goldin, mother of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, is sharply critical of the government decision to release terrorists who murdered Jews, with Israel gaining nothing in return.

"Hadar has been in Gaza for three-and-a-half years and the Israeli government is doing nothing to bring him back," Goldin told Army Radio.

The family is asking the Supreme Court to determine that the government must give 72-hour warning before it returns bodies of terrorists who carried out attacks and fully implement the cabinet's decisions regarding release of bodies.

"Netanyahu and the cabinet leave us no choice but to turn to legal aid so that cabinet decisions, which were taken with gravity, will be fully implemented," the Goldin family said. "The return of bodies of terrorists who carried out attacks that Hamas boasts of is a message of weakness and submission to terror, and every return of a terrorist's body is an abandonment of IDF fighters and Israeli citizens."

She said she felt the policymaker's helplessness. "Among the steps they've taken so far has been to prevent returning bodies to Hamas terrorists. No course of action was taken at all. Last Thursday, the State Prosecutor stood up and announced that Israel would carry out the cabinet decision not to return bodies. Just before the Sabbath, under the radar, the bodies were returned like thieves in the night. After the State Attorney declared in the Supreme Court that they would not return them, then that's what they did."

Goldin claimed that the responsibility for the return of the bodies of the soldiers held by Hamas is solely that of the Prime Minister. "It's a bad joke to set a meeting with us during the time of checking for chametz (on hectic Passover eve). They set us up a meeting two months in advance to check us off the list. As far as we're concerned, a prime minister who abandons soldiers isn't worthy of celebrating the State of Israel's 70th birthday.

"The process we are facing is a cabinet decision to make it difficult for Hamas. You have to show some kind of action. The soldiers have been abandoned. The Prime Minister must wake up; it's his duty to return them, he has no right to do anything else," the mother concluded.

The Israeli government had at one point promised to stop the transfer of terrorists’ bodies to the PA, but Friday’s body return would not be the first time that Israel has done so after promising to cease the practice.