RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israel is proposing the release of a number of Hamas prisoners it arrested in Gaza, along with a number of bodies of Palestinians, in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers in Hamas custody, according to a July 16 story in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The news raises once again the issue of the bodies of Palestinians held by Israel.
Palestinians believe that Israel is seeking through this proposal to blackmail Palestinians with their dead in order to recover the bodies of its soldiers. Issam Aruri, general director of the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, which launched a national campaign to recover the bodies, said that “with the new changes in Israel’s politics, after the war on Gaza and after Israel declared that Hamas has the severed limbs of two of its soldiers, [Israel] is now trying to recover the bodies through negotiations on the Palestinian martyrs' dossier, exercising a type of political blackmail, although it had previously pledged to release them.”
