Ehud Goldwasser

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Ehud "Udi" Goldwasser ( Hebrew אהוד גולדווסר; * July 18, 1975 in Nahariya ; † July 2006 ) was an Israeli soldier . He was captured by Hezbollah on Israel's northern border on July 12, 2006, along with Eldad Regev , and presumably died shortly afterwards. The capture was one of the reasons for the 2006 Lebanon War , in which a total of over 1,500 people were killed. In July 2008, Goldwasser and Regev's bodies were returned to Israel as part of a major prisoner exchange with Hezbollah.

Life

Goldwasser lived in Nahariya. He worked at Technion , Israel Technical University, where he received a degree in environmental engineering. As a teenager, Goldwasser lived in South Africa with his parents and two brothers . He was married. At the time of his kidnapping, he was serving as a reservist in the Israeli army, in a staff sergeant of the appropriate rank.

Kidnapping and death

East of the Israeli town of Sar'it, in the immediate vicinity of the Lebanese border, on the morning of July 12, 2006, a Hezbollah command of around 40 fighters attacked two armored military vehicles of a border patrol of the Israeli armed forces. The attackers killed three of the seven soldiers whose bodies they left behind and kidnapped Goldwasser and Regev to Lebanon. Two Israeli soldiers from the same vehicle as the kidnap victims were able to hide immediately after the first fire and survived. According to the Hannibal Directive , Israel responded to the kidnapping of its soldiers with massive fire at Hezbollah positions. Immediately after reporting the kidnapping by his troops, the commander of the division responsible for border surveillance sent a tank to Lebanon, the four-man crew of which were killed in a bomb trap that same day. A contingent sent to rescue the dead and the destroyed tank came under heavy fire, with the eighth Israeli soldier eventually dying as part of the Hezbollah operation.

Hezbollah called the attack " Operation Promise Held " on the grounds that Israel had failed to comply with an agreement to release detained fighters, leaving Hezbollah with no other choice. In 2012, Hezbollah first published video recordings of the attack by its fighters on the military vehicle with Goldwasser and Regev on a Lebanese television station. In 2016, a more detailed television broadcast followed with further details, including preparatory measures by the Hezbollah fighters under the guidance of Imad Mughniyya and sound recordings of the radio communications of the Israeli soldiers.

The arrest of the two soldiers in order to force Israel to exchange prisoners has been classified as a hostage-taking and war crime by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch .

At the request of the Israeli government and the UN General Secretary Kofi Annan , the German BND agent Gerhard Conrad took over the mediation between Israel and Hezbollah.

On June 29, 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were almost certain to be dead. Official confirmation was only given at the time of repatriation two weeks later. According to Israeli information, Goldwasser and Regev died shortly after their capture from the consequences of gunshot wounds sustained in the battle, which their autopsy confirmed. The Lebanese health minister Ali Hassan Khalil, on the other hand, cited a Hezbollah official in 2011 that the prisoners were killed in an Israeli air bombardment.

Families publicity campaign

After the kidnapping became known, Goldwassers and Regev's families started a national and international campaign to free the soldiers. At a press conference in Paris in July 2006, Goldwasser's mother spoke out against the Lebanon war , which the Israeli government had cited as a justification for the kidnapping. Goldwasser's wife Karnit was, among others, Nicolas Sarkozy , Bernard Kouchner , Hillary and Bill Clinton , Tony Blair , Romano Prodi , Kofi Annan and Pope Benedict XVI. receive. At a press conference held by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York on the occasion of his participation in the UN General Assembly in September 2007, she spoke up and blamed him for the kidnapping of her husband. The director Nurit Kedar dedicated the documentary Chronicle of a Kidnap (Kronika Shel Chatifa) to her . Karnit Goldwasser used her fame gained through the publicity campaign in 2013 as a successful candidate for the Tel Aviv City Council, in 2011 for a book with which she processed her experiences, and for lecture tours in the USA.

Exchange and return

As part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah in October 2007, according to Arab media reports, the Lebanese side handed over important information about Goldwasser and Regev, the exchange of which was still being negotiated at the time. On July 16, 2008, the remains of the two soldiers were finally handed over to Israel as part of a larger agreement. In return, Israel fired the three Hezbollah members Maher Kourani, Mohammed Srour and Hussein Sleimane, the Khader Sidan, who had been arrested in the Lebanon War in 2006, and the convicted terrorist Samir Kuntar, and handed over the bodies of around 200 Arabs who had been arrested as a supporter had fallen into clashes with the Israeli military, including eight Hezbollah members. Sleimane was tried in an Israeli civil court in September 2006 for involvement in the operation that resulted in Goldwasser and Regev's kidnapping. Kuntar's release was controversial in Israel: in 1979, at the age of 16, as part of a Palestinian terrorist squad that invaded Israel from Lebanon, he kidnapped and murdered a civilian and his four-year-old daughter, and was admitted to Hezbollah during his almost 30-year imprisonment in Israel was received like a popular hero on his return to Lebanon. He was killed along with eight Syrians in 2015 in a rocket attack allegedly carried out by Israeli planes on his home in Damascus. As part of the negotiated exchange, Hezbollah also gave Israel its own investigation report into the fate of the missing Air Force officer Ron Arad , as well as two photos and parts of a diary he kept from his imprisonment.

One day after the prisoner exchange, Goldwasser was buried in the military cemetery in Nahariya with great sympathy from Israeli society. He had previously been posthumously promoted to Sergeant Major. During the funeral, his mother recalled his ideals, including his rejection of the Israeli settlement of the occupied Palestinian territories .

Web links

  • Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff: Chronicle of Disaster. In: Haaretz from July 18, 2008 (English) - detailed description of the kidnapping from an Israeli perspective

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff: Chronicle of Disaster. In: Haaretz from July 18, 2008 (English)
  2. ↑ William M. Arkin: Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base 2007, pp. 1f. (English)
  3. ↑ Marcello Mollica: A Post-War Paradox of Informality in South Lebanon: Rebuilding Houses or Destroying Legitimacy. In: Studies of Transition States and Societies Volume 16, Issue 1, p. 35 (English)
  4. ↑ Yoel Goldman: Here's the evidence Hezbollah is a terror group, says soldier's widow of 2006 attack footage. In: The Times of Israel of July 28, 2012, accessed October 16, 2018.
  5. ↑ Benny Toker: 'Don't give Hezbollah a platform'. In: Israel National News of July 31, 2016, accessed October 16, 2018.
  6. ↑ Human Rights Watch : What Hezbollah's capture of Israeli soldiers lawful? , August 2, 2006
  7. ↑ a b c Israel's long arm of vengeance. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of December 20, 2015, accessed on October 15, 2018
  8. ↑ Diplomacy: Mr. Hezbollah. In: Der Spiegel of October 23, 2006, accessed on October 16, 2018
  9. ^ Tovah Lazaroff: Miki Goldwasser: For us, they are still alive. In: Jerusalem Post, June 29, 2006, accessed October 16, 2018
  10. ↑ a b Richard Boudreaux: Deaths confirmed, Israel weeps as one. In: Los Angeles Times, July 17, 2008, accessed October 16, 2018.
  11. ↑ a b Ehud Goldwasser: Moving burial of the soldier. In: Focus Online . July 17, 2008, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Lebanese Minister: Goldwasser, Regev Were Killed by IDF Fire. In: Haaretz from October 5, 2011, accessed on October 15, 2018 (English)
  13. ^ Family of Captured Israeli Soldier Opposes Lebanon War. In: Democracy Now! from July 27, 2006, accessed on October 16, 2018 (English)
  14. ↑ Ahiya Raved: 'Releasing captives is French people's duty'. In: Ynetnews of July 9, 2007, accessed October 16, 2018 (English)
  15. ↑ Karnit Goldwasser: Only a sign of life. In: Der Spiegel from December 22, 2006, accessed on October 16, 2018
  16. ↑ Claudia Parsons: Ahmadinejad snubs wife of kidnapped Israeli soldier. In: Reuters of September 26, 2007, accessed October 16, 2018
  17. ^ Chronicle of a Kidnap. Filmfest Hamburg 2008, accessed on October 16, 2018
  18. Jump up ↑ Justin Sayers: Karnit Goldwasser, wife of captured Israeli soldier, to speak in Scottsdale. In: The Republic of September 21, 2015, accessed October 16, 2018.
  19. ↑ Debra Rubin: Soldier's widow recalls search for answers. In: New Jersey Jewish News, October 19, 2015, accessed October 16, 2018.
  20. ↑ Roee Nahmias: 'Nasrallah provided exact information on kidnapped soldiers'. In: Ynetnews of October 17, 2007, accessed on October 16, 2018 (English)
  21. ^ Background: The Israeli-Lebanese prisoner exchange. In: Der Standard from July 16, 2008, accessed October 16, 2018
  22. ↑ Susanne Knaul: Israel mourns dead soldiers: Nation in pain. In: taz.de from July 16, 2008, accessed on October 15, 2018
  23. ↑ Isabel Kershner: Yielding Prisoners, Israel Receives 2 Dead Soldiers. In: New York Times, July 17, 2006, accessed October 15, 2018.
  24. ↑ Ethan Bronner: Israel Agrees to Exchange Prisoners for Dead Soldiers. In: New York Times, June 30, 2006, accessed October 15, 2018
  25. ↑ Three captured Hezbollah fighters appear in Israeli court. In: AP Archive of September 18, 2006, accessed October 16, 2018
  26. ↑ Exchange with Hezbollah: Israel confirms the identity of the dead soldiers. In: Welt from July 16, 2008, accessed October 15, 2018
  27. ↑ Christoph Sydow: The pure hatred of Israel. In: Spiegel Online of December 21, 2015, accessed October 15, 2018
  28. ^ Donald Macintyre: Fragments of diary revive saga of missing Israeli airman. In: The Independent of July 16, 2008, accessed October 16, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Goldwasser, Ehud
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goldwasser, Ehud Ben Malka (full name); Goldwasser, Udi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hezbollah
DATE OF BIRTH 18th July 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH Nahariya
DATE OF DEATH July 2006