Answering the question of why Israel was handing over the bodies of terrorists who carried out attacks in the recent wave of terror to the Palestinians but was not demanding the bodies of Israeli soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin (who fell during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014) in exchange, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon replied, “Israel is not in the business of trading bodies.”
One of those opposed to returning the Palestinian bodies is former Shin Bet Director Knesset member Yaakov Peri, who told the army radio station that those bodies could have been used as a bargaining chip to bring back Israeli prisoners and soldiers missing in action.
Yet, keeping those bodies in Israel as a bargaining chip would not have facilitated negotiations with Hamas, thereby resulting in the return of the Israeli bodies being held in the Gaza Strip. On Nov. 4, Khaled Meshaal, the movement’s leader, reiterated the position that there would be no arrangement whatsoever with Israel so long as all those arrested in the Gilad Shalit (the abducted Israeli soldier) 2011 deal were not released. A similar demand was made by senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh in July 2015, in the wake of reports that two Israeli civilians — Avraham Mengistu and a young Bedouin whose identity remains confidential — were being held by Hamas in Gaza.
In the aftermath of the June 2014 kidnapping and subsequent murder of three Israeli youths — Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrah — the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a night operation in which 54 Palestinians were arrested, all of whom were prisoners that had been released in the Gilad Shalit exchange deal, which was the culmination of long, nerve-racking negotiations that lasted over five years. Back in the day, scathing public criticism was voiced about the fact that Israel had crossed its own "red lines" by releasing prisoners with "blood on their hands," namely those who carried out murderous attacks in Israel. But the government approved the deal and it went through. Israel met all the conditions, releasing 1,027 prisoners. Some were expelled to the Gaza Strip and others to foreign countries. The less "heavyweight" prisoners were sent back to their homes in the West Bank, including those 54 people who were later rearrested and have been incarcerated in Israel ever since.
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