Israel Verifies Death of 38 Hostages Who Were Believed to Be Alive

[JustAnotherGen]

49. Revenge?

Or getting the hostages back - or their corpses?

As Pullout Nears, Gaza’s Graves a Stumbling Block
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-aug-11-fg-graves11-story.html

The disposition of the graves of Gush Katif, Gaza’s main settlement block, has become one of the most wrenching questions surrounding the evacuation of nearly 9,000 Jewish settlers, which is set to begin Wednesday. The bodies of 48 people are buried in the cemetery, where blue-and-white Israeli flags flap in the searing summer wind and an electrified fence carries a warning sign to keep away.

Funeral and mourning rituals, governed by strict rules pertaining to the handling of bodies, occupy a hallowed place in Jewish tradition. And thus the planned removal of the cemetery, this most literal leaving of the land, has become painfully entwined with the larger battle over whether Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is right to relinquish Gaza, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War.

A majority of Israelis support the decision made by Sharon to end Israel’s occupation of a teeming, poverty-stricken strip of territory that is home to more than 1.3 million Palestinians. But settlers and their supporters have struggled determinedly to thwart the uprooting of settlements and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

The Israeli government says it is doing all it can to handle the planned exhumations with sensitivity and understanding. But officials quietly complain that the settlers, many of whom still believe that the Gaza withdrawal won’t take place, have resisted all efforts to reach an agreement on details of the bodies’ removal and reburial.

No Israelis - even corpses are supposed to be there. It would probably be a very low risk mission to drive all 130+ to a crossing to end this now.