29 December 2017•Update: 30 December 2017
By Nour Abu Aisha
GAZA CITY, Palestine
The Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, erected a large banner in Gaza City on Friday that appeared to show a captive Israeli soldier -- who Israeli officials had earlier claimed was dead -- behind bars.
The soldier, Oron Shaul, was lost in action during Israel’s military onslaught on Gaza in mid-2014.
The image is accompanied by a caption, which reads in both Arabic and Hebrew: “As long as our heroes do not see freedom, nor will this captive see freedom.”
During the 2014 conflict, the Qassam Brigades claimed to have captured Shaul during an ill-fated Israeli land incursion into Gaza City’s eastern Shajaiyya district.
Israeli officials at the time had said Shaul had been killed in the fighting and that Hamas was holding his dead body.
Late last year, the Gaza-based SAFA news agency -- known to be close to Hamas -- again suggested that Shaul was alive and was being held somewhere in Gaza.
As a matter of policy, Hamas generally refrains from providing any information on Israeli soldiers captured by its armed wing.
In 2006, the Qassam Brigades captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Five years later, in a landmark prisoner-swap deal brokered by Egypt, Hamas exchanged Shalit for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Israel's 2014 onslaught against the Hamas-run Gaza Strip left some 2,150 Palestinians dead -- mostly civilians -- and thousands more injured. According to Israeli figures, at least 70 Israelis -- 65 soldiers and five civilians -- were killed in the conflict.
