Israel Identifies Hostage Remains, Returns 'Bags of Bones'
Al-Monitor dutifully reports Israel identified four deceased hostages and, separately, 'returned' 45 Palestinian bodies to Gaza. This sanitized language avoids uncomfortable truths: these were not intact transfers. For decades, Israel has retained Palestinian bodies, often for leverage or 'deterrence,' a documented practice by human rights groups like Al-Haq. Sometimes these 'returns' are not
bodies, but bags of dismembered remains. (One might wonder about the timing and humanitarian motivation of such gestures.) While the focus is on the identified hostage, the sheer number of Palestinian 'dead' returned, often after forensic mutilation or in fragments, points to a macabre calculus. This isn’t a reciprocal exchange but a controlled release after significant pressure, a chilling
reminder that even death offers no peace for Palestinians under occupation whose bodies become bargaining chips. How many stories are buried with those 45?