Israel returns bodies of Palestinian attackers

This article originally appeared on The Media Line.

Thousands of Palestinian mourners filled the streets of the villages of Sair and Surif near the West Bank town of Hebron, which has become the focal point of Palestinian attacks on Israeli soldiers in the past month. The bodies of Raed Jaradat, 22, and Mahmoud Ghneimat, 20, were released to the Palestinian Authority Sunday morning and the funeral was held in the afternoon.

Jaradat was shot last week after he stabbed and injured a 19-year-old Israeli soldier. The circumstances surrounding Ghneimat’s death, however, are less clear. Israeli officials said he had attempted a stabbing attack, but nobody was wounded, and Palestinians denied the version.

The bodies of both men were carried in a full military procession out of the hospital. Palestinian officials said Israel promised to return the bodies of five other attackers the same day, but said Israeli officials reneged on the promise. Israeli officials were not available for comment, although privately said that the Palestinians had reneged on promises not to hold mass public funerals.

On Friday, Israeli officials returned the bodies of five attackers, all between the ages of 15 and 17, who were buried in an emotional joint funeral. About 20 Palestinians have been killed in the Hebron area since the beginning of October, almost all of them shot dead during attempted or actual attacks on Israeli soldiers. After the funerals, they threw rocks at Israeli soldiers.

Last month, Israel announced that it would not turn over the bodies of Palestinians killed attacking Israelis. Former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beytenu party, sharply attacked the government’s decision to change its mind.

“This is a wrong step, meant to appease the terrorists, and it is akin to paying a ransom to those who threaten Israel. It is a shameful surrender to the Palestinians’ threats, one that will not only fail to bring about quiet, but will bring about an increase in terrorism.”

Palestinians however say that the decision to release the bodies is meant to calm the situation in Hebron and could have the desired effect.

“From a religious point of view, it is imperative to bury the dead,” Mohammed Abu Aktesh, responsible for all visitors to the al-Aqsa mosque, told The Media Line. “It gives respect to the dead and to their families. If they are not buried near their families it is a tragedy for them.”

According to Islam, burial must take place as quickly as possible in a Muslim cemetery, after the body is washed and wrapped in shrouds. It is preferable to do the burial during the day, although burials at night are allowed in certain cases.

From the viewpoint of Jewish law, the question of whether to release bodies is not a religious question, but a political one.

“There is no ownership of a dead body whether it is the body of a Jew or a Muslim,” Rabbi Herzl Hefter, head of the Harel Beit Midrash in Jerusalem, told The Media Line. “You can’t treat the bodies of terrorists with disrespect, and you should bury them, but there is no Jewish law that says the bodies have to be returned for burial. That is a foreign policy decision and the state is sovereign here.”

Former senior Israeli intelligence officials say there is no proof that holding onto the bodies helps stop attacks on Israelis.

“We closely investigated this when I was in charge of the Shin Bet (the Israeli intelligence service and we came to the conclusion that holding onto the bodes does not give us any advantages or intelligence assets,” Ami Ayalon, who was the head of the Shin Bet from 1996 – 2000 and advocates an Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank told The Media Line. “Holding the bodies goes against international law and morality.”

The Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip is believed to be currently holding two Israelis – an Ethiopian named Avera Mengistu and a Bedouin who has not been named. Both men were believed to be captured after they willingly entered Gaza and Israel has said it will not release any bodies or live prisoners in exchange for them. In addition, Hamas is holding the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in the summer of 2014 during the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

In the past, Israel has been willing to trade hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and bodies for the bodies of Israeli soldiers. In the past 20 years, according to the Ynet news agency, there have been four prisoner exchanges in which Israel freed 7500 Arab and Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 14 living Israelis and six bodies.

“Palestinian bodies or Egyptian bodies have never brought back Israeli bodies,” Menachem Fisch, a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem told The Media Line. “It has always been live Arab prisoners for Israeli bodies, whether we like it or not.”

Fisch, an ethicist, says that releasing the bodies of anyone killed in war is a moral imperative on both sides. Beyond that, it could change the tone of the current conflict.

“The armed conflict should be contained within a civil boundary of mutual respect for the dead and wounded,” he said. “It is in Israel’s vital interest to normalize the conflict to boundaries and borders and carving up the political space. We do not want it to become a primordial conflict of Judaism and Islam, but a conflict on how to carve out a way to live together in this holiest of lands.”