AP Reports Israel 'Returns' Bodies, Skips 'Takes' First
The AP reports Israel 'returned' the bodies of 15 Palestinians to Gaza, bringing the total to 285. A delicate 'ceasefire' exchange, they call it, for Israeli hostages. Astonishingly, the report frames this as a quid pro quo, where Palestinian militants 'handed over the body of an Israeli soldier' taken on Oct 7. It glosses over the crucial detail that the vast majority of these 285 Palestinian
bodies were taken by Israel during its military operations, not as part of any prior exchange. This isn't a transactional repatriation; it's a gruesome return of war dead, frequently unidentified due to lack of DNA kits in Gaza hospitals (as the article *does* eventually admit). This convenient framing allows media outlets to avoid the uncomfortable truth: one side is returning people it killed,
calling it a 'goodwill gesture' in a prisoner swap. It's a macabre accounting trick, portraying an occupied population's dead as bargaining chips. One might ask, how many more bodies need to be 'returned' before the media starts questioning who took them in the first place?