Tzur Goldin’s 11-year fight to bring his twin brother, Hadar, home from Hamas captivity ended just over a week ago, yet the 34-year-old lawyer, now studying at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that the war in Gaza must not end if any hostages remain.
“We see those three [remaining] hostages, and we’re very worried that my brother’s case will be repeated,” said Goldin, referring to Israelis Dror Or and Ran Gvili and Thai national Sudthisak Rinthalak.
“There was an agreement signed where all hostages were to be brought back,” he said, adding that Hamas was in violation of that agreement by not returning everyone.
Goldin said he believes that the terror group does not have a problem finding the hostages, only a problem of “motivation.”
“They can be brought home in a matter of days,” Goldin stated. “They [Hamas] are holding them as bargaining chips, although the deal has been signed and they have all their prisoners… this cannot be overlooked.”
Hadar Goldin's brother warns about the remaining hostages
Until last week, Tzur Goldin, together with his parents, Leah and Simha Goldin, and two other siblings, traveled the world, fighting tirelessly in every forum for the release of Hadar, 23, a platoon commander in the Givati Brigade, killed and kidnapped by Hamas on August 1, 2014, during the six-week Operation Protective Edge.
Hadar was finally freed as part of the ceasefire deal mediated by US President Donald Trump last month and was laid to rest in the military cemetery in Kfar Saba a week ago.
Goldin said that he and other members of the Hostage Families Forum – whose relatives were kidnapped into Gaza on October 7, 2023 – with backing from Israeli diplomats and security professionals, were involved in drafting the deal in Washington over the past six months.
“We advocated to death,” Goldin told the Post. “We drafted, and we added the annexes regarding the mechanism to retrieve all hostages, and I’m very proud of it.”
However, he cautioned, “There are three hostages remaining, and there’s a true danger that they will not be released because the interest [of the Americans] is now to progress with processes throughout the Middle East.”
Goldin said that forgetting about the hostages remaining in Gaza – as some had done to his brother and three other Israelis who were held by Hamas for over a decade until this current war – would set a dangerous precedent for all terror groups around the world.
“Hamas and terrorist organizations are using this effective method of terrorism against democratic societies,” he said about such hostage-taking tactics. “This is not only an Israeli story; this will also expand to all Western society, and it has to be looked at.”
From his personal experience, Goldin noted that hostage-taking by terror groups not only sows divisions in society; it also raises a political dilemma for governments when those hostages are used as bargaining chips.
“This is not something that the international society can and should accept,” he continued. “Kidnapping terrorism should be eliminated.”
Goldin said that prior to October 7, some Israeli leaders held a “misconception” – due to the trauma left by another high-profile hostage case, Gilad Schalit. They believed that by publicly ignoring or downplaying the fact that there were hostages in Gaza – as happened with his brother Hadar and with fellow soldier Oron Shaul and two living Israeli civilians – then terror groups would be deterred from repeating them.
“There was a sense, before October 7, [that] if the value of hostages is reduced, if we disconnect from them, then Hamas would be less motivated to kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians in the future,” Goldin said.
The results were exactly the opposite, he noted, adding that this is exactly why Israel – and the US – must now do everything to bring all remaining hostages home before allowing the current war to end.
The full interview will be published in The Jerusalem Report.