CAIRO (Middle East Eye) – Two American leaders met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi during his visit to Washington, where they raised the issue of several Zionist troops detained in Gaza.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’ CEO William Daroff and its chair Dianne Lob met with Sisi, Daroff said in a statement on Twitter.
“I also raised the issue of the Israelis who are being held captive by Hamas in Gaza: Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, and the bodies of two soldiers, Hadar Goldin, z”l, and Oron Shaul, z”l, and reiterated the importance of their return to the American Jewish community,” Daroff said.
Hamas is holding Mengistu, a Zionist, who entered Gaza in September 2014 for unclear reasons. Sayed wandered into the besieged enclave in 2015 and was captured by Hamas, the de-facto ruler of Gaza, and accused him of being “a soldier in the occupation army”.
The two Zionist soldiers, Goldin and Shaul, were captured a month earlier. The occupying regime says both are presumed dead, while Hamas refused to comment on whether they are alive or dead.
Hamas and the Zionist regime have indirectly negotiated a prisoner swap deal at various times since 2014, without any breakthroughs.
According to Haaretz, the Zionist prime minister’s office said they would continue working with Egypt to negotiate their release.
The most famous trade came in 2011, when Gilad Shalit – a Zionist soldier abducted by the Palestinian group in a raid in 2006 - was released in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinians that were being held in the Zionist regime’s jails.
Hundreds of Palestinians released as part of the Shalit deal were later re-arrested by the regime, however, and were forced to serve the rest of their sentences.
There are currently 4,760 Palestinian prisoners inside the Zionist regime’s jails.