Israel holding Gaza militants' bodies as bargaining chips
Israel decided not to return the bodies of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas members until some progress is made on returning the Israeli civilians and the bodies of IDF soldiers held by Hamas.
Two human rights groups, Israel's Adalah (Justice in Arabic) and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in the Gaza Strip, withdrew their petition to the Supreme Court Nov. 6 that demanded Israel allow Hamas forces to extricate five missing Palestinians from a tunnel extending from the southern Gaza Strip, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) blew up last week. The decision came following an announcement from Israel that it has the bodies of the five Palestinians, who were considered missing until then.
The petition — also on behalf of the father of one of the missing Palestinians, Hassan Abd al-Jalil Sabah — was submitted to the Supreme Court Nov. 2. The impetus was a decision by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai to turn down a request by the Red Cross to allow Hamas to send rescue teams to the tunnel in order to locate any trapped Palestinians and provide any who are still alive with medical aid. "Israel would not allow search efforts in the Gaza Strip security zone without progress on the issue of Israeli POWs [prisoners of war] and MIAs [those missing in action]," Mordechai told Jacques de Maio, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross's delegation in Israel.
According to Adalah and Al Mezan, Mordechai's refusal was a clear violation of international law concerning the humanitarian rescue of the injured, including those injured in war.
Until the Red Cross approached Mordechai and Adalah and Al Mezan took their case to the Supreme Court, it was not known whether the Palestinians in the tunnel were killed immediately when Israel blew it up or whether they were still alive and could be offered medical aid and rescued. According to Adalah's lawyer Muna Haddad, Israel was in no hurry to respond to the case, because it was concerned that the Supreme Court would obligate it to rescue the missing Palestinians in the tunnel, "as required by the humanitarian rules of international law." Adalah believes that the IDF first searched for the bodies in the tunnel and only responded to the Supreme Court case after they were found.
