Criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or “politicize” Israel’s handling of your son’s captivity in the Gaza Strip and he will bear the consequences, a top Israeli official told the family of a man who crossed into the enclave ten months ago.
Israeli officials earlier Thursday lifted a gag order on information that two Israelis are being held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip after having crossed into the Palestinian territory, including Avraham Mengistu, an Israeli of Ethiopian descent.
Mengisto’s brother Ilan said Avraham, a resident of Ashkelon, a city close to the Gaza border, was unwell and needed help.
Israel’s Channel 10 News broadcast a recording of a meeting between Lior Lotan, Netanyahu’s coordinator on Israel Defense Soldiers fallen in captivity, and the Mengistu family, where the official, apparently unaware he’s being recorded, is heard delivering the soldier’s relatives a stern dressing down and warning them to avoid speaking to the press.
Should the family air its grievances to the press, and thus “choose to point the finger of blame at Jerusalem rather than Hamas,” this would only profit the Islamist group who’s holding Avraham, Lotan is heard saying.
Netanyahu also takes part in the conversation, warning the family over the phone that giving the press information information about the captive would make it easier for Hamas to raise the price for the captive.
Lotan proceeded to dismiss the family’s complaints that they are being treated with indifference and kept out of the loop by offering to introduce them to the “harsh realities of the real world.”
His reference to the potential “politicizing” of Mengistu’s plight by linking it to recent allegations of institutionalized racism by the Ethiopian community has evidently touched a raw nerve with the already aggrieved family and sparked outrage across Israeli social media, where it has been widely described as an extraordinary indictment of government officials.
The story is unfolding to the backdrop of heightened racial tensions in Israel that saw the 135,000-strong Ethiopian Jewish community stage rallies against alleged police brutality and racism.
Netanyahu has distanced himself from Lotan’s conduct, denouncing his statements which “shouldn’t have been said.” He did, however, praise Lotan’s commitment to the task at hand, of bringing Avraham back to his family.
Lotan has called the family to apologize for his conduct.
In the recording, Lotan has also described for the family a video that documents Avraham’s crossing the border, which he did on foot on September 7, 2014.
“In the video Avra is seen approaching a wall and trying to climb it from several spots. Then security forces were called to the scene. Finally, he finds a spot, and climbs over the barbed wire, which takes him some five minutes.
“Meanwhile the troops shout at him and even fire in the air but they don’t have orders to engage individuals trying to enter Gaza. They also didn’t believe it was a security incident because his bag was left on our side. They brought a bomb squad, which shot the bag and only after they saw there were no explosives, saw a Bible, saw Avra’s name, saw he was a Jew, they realized there’s a Jew here who crossed the border.”
