The families of two Israelis detained in Gaza since 2014-2015 and two Israeli soldiers who were killed in the Palestinian Strip came to Geneva on Wednesday, for the first time together, to request assistance from the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Palestinian Hamas movement keeps the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Aron Shaul Hadar Goldin, who were killed during the 2014 war in the Strip.

The movement is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Palestinian enclave of their own accord in 2014 and 2015, respectively, and are believed to be alive.

These two Israelis are Avraham Mengistu, a Jew of Ethiopian origin, and Hisham Al-Sayed, a Bedouin Muslim, and the Hebrew state says that they suffer from mental disorders.

This is the first time that the four families have traveled together to Geneva to seek help from the international community and meet UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and ICRC Vice-President Gilles Carbonaire.

"I have no information about my son," said Leah Goldin, the mother of one of the two dead soldiers, whose body has been in Gaza for nine years.

"I came here, to Geneva, where all questions are, where all human rights issues are discussed. It's time to act," he added.

The fate of the missing soldiers is a particularly sensitive topic in Israel, where the vast majority of young Jews serve in the conscription.

In recent years, several attempts have been made to exchange civilians and the remains of the two soldiers for Palestinian prisoners.

But for Ofek Shaul, there is only one thing that matters after all these years of waiting. "I want my brother," he told AFP. "I don't care how."

Leah Goldin, whose son was killed on August 1, 2014, just hours after the truce went into effect, suggested that the international community should "reverse the equation," suggesting that aid sent to the Palestinian enclave be conditional on the return of the body.

"I am not saying that all humanitarian aid should stop, but that it should be used as leverage," she said.

In response to a question by Agence France-Presse about this meeting, the International Committee of the Red Cross indicated the confidentiality of the talks, but confirmed that the families of the missing, whether they were "Israelis or Palestinians (...) have the right to know the fate of their relatives."

"The bodies of those killed during the conflict must be identified, treated with dignity and returned," the committee said, stressing that it "strives to clarify the fate of missing persons from all parties to the conflict."

The family of Mengistu, who disappeared on 7 September 2014, feels helpless.

In January, Hamas released an undated video of Mengistu, but his mother, Agarnesh Mengistu, told AFP she was not sure if the person in the video was her son.

"The most difficult thing is to understand why Hamas shows no mercy towards my son," she added crying.

But even though this is her third trip to Geneva, she still clings to hope.

On the other hand, this is the first time that Hisham Al-Sayed's parents have come to Geneva to seek help from the international community after trying to organize negotiations through the Bedouin communities.

But his father, Shaaban al-Sayed, told AFP that those efforts had failed and "we came here as a last resort in the hope that the United Nations would help us bring him home after eight years."

Since 2008, Hamas and Israel have faced each other in several wars and a series of military escalations. Last December, Hamas threatened to close the case of the four Israelis "forever" if no prisoner exchange with the Jewish state took place quickly.