The family of Avera Mengistu, an Israeli held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, received video footage on Friday from the Israel Defense Forces that captured the fateful moment he had crossed the border into Gaza. Mengistu, a 30-year-old Ethiopian-Israeli, disappeared after he entered Gaza of his own accord on Sept. 7, 2014, two weeks after Israel's clash with Hamas dubbed Operation Protective Edge. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot approved the release of the footage after the Mengistu family petitioned the military on Jan. 24. Friday marked 1,015 days since his disappearance. Mengistu's mother, Agernish, said on Sunday that the family was viewing the footage and studying it. "My son is dealing with a mental handicap, and we fear for his life daily," she said. "Releasing the video does not release the state of the responsibility to bring back Avera, my son, back to our country." Some three months after the incident, the Mengistu family was briefed on the findings of the military investigation into the disappearance. At the time, the family was shown the video of Mengistu crossing the security fence into northern Gaza from the Zikim area. Military field surveillance officers who saw Mengistu cross the border said he was carrying a bag, raising suspicion that he was a Palestinian operative attempting to return to Gaza. The IDF deployed troops, but Mengistu had crossed the fence and disappeared into Gaza by the time the forces arrived. Only in retrospect did it emerge that he was an Israeli citizen. His family says that because of his mental disability, this is a humanitarian concern. "We have been going through a difficult time for three years now," one of Mengistu's relatives said Sunday, "and we will not back down until Avera returns home." Hamas is also believed to be holding the bodies of Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul and Lt. Hadar Goldin, who were killed in the Gaza Strip in separate battles during the last war with Hamas in 2014, as well as a Bedouin man, Hisham al-Sayed, who also suffers from mental health issues and crossed into Gaza voluntarily in 2015. A fifth Israeli, Jumaa Abu Ghanima, crossed the border into Gaza in 2016, and his fate remains unknown.
