Honorable Sirs,
We are to contact you regarding Abera Mengistu, the sick Israeli civilian you hold captive for more than 1,000 days.
We are confident that you host him according to your great culture of hospitality and treat him in accordance with the lofty Islamic values. That is as exactly as Ethiopia, from where Abera’s parents had come, hosted the followers of the Prophet Muhammad in ancient times.
However, Abera Mengistu should be with his family, in his natural surroundings. Likewise, we think there is no reason to hold him against his will and in his delicate health condition.
Therefore, we, the ordinary citizens who have lost trust in politics and politicians, appeal to you and ask you to release Abera Mengistu for the following reasons:
1. The Israeli Government will not pay for Abera Mengistu’s release because he is not Gilad Shalit. Gilad Shalit was a soldier inside the most protected war machine. He was in a combat operation, a few meters from the border, with his sophisticated weaponry aimed at you. You pulled him out from his most protected tank in a military action you saw legitimate.
2. Abera Mengistu, in contrast, was a civilian, physically exhausted and psychologically drained, exposed to all hazards of society. He was not aware of his actions when he crossed the border. He did that not as an offensive action; he did that not to violate your sovereignty; he did that not to hurt your national pride.
3. The citizens of Israel have given up on Abera Mengistu. Gilad Shalit was “Our” child, the child of all Israelis. Abera Mengistu is only the child of his parents. He has no armies of activists with an unlimited budget who can influence the government to pay the price you demand in exchange for his release.
4. Abera Mengistu does not hold a citizenship of a European superpower as Gilad Shalit did. He does not have a European President who can wield his influence on global and local public opinion for him.
5. Abera’s family has no ability to exert pressure on the Government. It is a family of immigrants, living on the margins of Israeli society.
6. The family is suffering and painful. Its condition has deteriorated since its son mistakenly crossed the border. The uncertainty about his condition and the longing for him are unbearable.
And thus, dear Sirs, what political, military, or strategic needs do you have in holding Abera Mengistu, who is abandoned to his fate even by his own Government?
It has been 1026 days since Abera last saw his loving family. It is already 1026 days that the Israeli Government does not take a substantive step to bring him home. Therefore, it seems that only you, the sovereign Government of Gaza, are able to return him to his family.
We request you, in every manner of request, to release Abera Mengistu. Have mercy for him. Have mercy for his family. Please, understand the situation as a whole and his miserable condition, and make this human gesture. You have the ability to put an end to his suffering and the suffering of his family.
Bring him to Erez Checkpoint. The family will come, without the Prime Minister, without the SC Commander, without helicopters and cars of dignitaries as when Shalit was released. They are ordinary people. If necessary, they will come there on foot to receive their beloved son from you and re-embrace him to their bosom.
If you stand on the side of the vulnerable and the sick, Allah the merciful will reward you. For such humanitarian action, you will earn the appreciation of the ordinary masses everywhere. If you release Mengistu, you will be remembered as the ones who rescued a sick person, who is abandoned because he is Abera Mengistu.