Last update - 00:00 30/03/2007
Chief of Staff Ashkenazi meets with parents of abducted soldiers
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi on Friday met with families of abducted IDF soldiers Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev, and Ehud Goldwasser.
The meetings, which were held in the families' homes, were the first time Ashkenazi has met with the families since the soldiers were captured in July.
At a rally held in Mitzpeh Hila after the meeting, Noam Shalit, Gilad's father, said, "This Passover, Ehud, Eldad, and Gilad are not free men, because of the failures of the system and its inability to learn from mistakes of the past."
Around 1,500 people took part in the rally in Mitzpeh Hila, with many carrying signs and flying kites with slogans demanding the government take steps to free the three captive soldiers.
"This Passover, we won't celebrate like all of the people of Israel, we will sit together and leave our door open waiting for a miracle, hoping that maybe Gilad will suddenly walk through the door," Shalit stated.
Shalit also called on Olmert to "take responsibility and pay the debt owed to these soldiers who set out to protect their country."
The families mentioned that Ashkenazi had no new intelligence on the fate of their sons and that he must push measures to develop talks with the Palestinians or with Hizbollah.
Miki Goldwasser, Ehud's mother, asked Asheknazi to exert pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the sake of "returning the abducted soldiers to their homes as soon as possible."
Goldwasser told Haaretz that "from the standpoint of the families, the soldiers were captured because of failures of the army, which is now lead by Ashkenazi. We expect Ashkenazi to continue to push the prime minister until the soldiers are returned."