Vigil spotlights plight of missing troops

Former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel denies saying that Goldwasser and Regev are alive.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
karnit goldwasser rally (photo credit: Channel 10)
karnit goldwasser rally
(photo credit: Channel 10)
About 1,000 people took part Friday in a vigil to call attention to the plight of missing soldiers Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev and Gilad Shalit. The vigil began in Jerusalem and ended up at the northern community of Zarit, adjacent to the spot where Goldwasser and Regev were kidnapped last July 12. For a Jerusalem Online video of events click here Meanwhile, former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel denied on Friday that he had said that Goldwasser and Regev were alive and would hopefully return home safely. Participants in the rally, under the banner "Don't let apathy kill them," included friends and supporters as well as the family of Regev, 26, and Shalit, 20, kidnapped by Hamas on the Gaza border on June 26. Goldwasser's mother, Miki, told Army Radio about Gemayel's initial remarks - which were reported by Ma'ariv - that she was happy to hear them. "It is great," she said. "I hope that with a little more pressure from mothers in Lebanon we will succeed in doing what maybe politicians don't do. We want our sons home." Goldwasser added that she believed that from the outset a solution to the issue would be found within one or two months. "Every possible price must be paid to secure the release of soldiers that were sent on a mission by the state," she added. Friday's vigil started in Jerusalem with a ceremony in Paris Square. A convoy of cars then left the capital, stopping in Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Regev hometown of Kirayt Motzkin and Mitzpe Hila, where the Shalit family lives, before arriving in Zarit. The participants stood on the northern border close to the site where Hizbullah kidnapped Miki's son, turning her world upside down. Short of news that he was wounded when his tank was attacked while on patrol, Miki has received no word or sign of Ehud's well-being since the kidnapping. "It hurts to think he was taken from within his country in a spot where one should be picking flowers," Miki told The Jerusalem Post Thursday.