A question on body swapping
2 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Thursday, July 17 at Thursday, July 17, 2008.
(updated at bottom)
There is a big question in my head after reading about the Israel-Lebanon prisoner/body swap, and it comes from details like this:
Or maybe the bodies were killed (or at least died) in Israel at some time other than the war?
Can anybody shed some light on this?
UPDATE: A guy in my office with a fair bit of experience with this stuff thinks - and he stressed that he thinks, not knows - that most of the bodies would be people who were killed, captured or kidnapped during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Sounds plausible.
There is a big question in my head after reading about the Israel-Lebanon prisoner/body swap, and it comes from details like this:
The bodies of nearly 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters, returned as part of an exchange deal with Israel, are heading towards Beirut from southern Lebanon.My question: How did Israel come into posession of all those bodies? The war was fought entirely on Lebanese soil, save the Hizbollah incursion that set things in motion. So does that mean the Israeli army collected the bodies of dead Hizbollah guys, loaded them into their jeeps and took them back to Israel?The remains of the Arab fighters passed through the border town of Naqura on Thursday, a day after Israel exchanged them along with five prisoners for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah.
Is it just me, or it that incredibly spooky and weird? Maybe I'm not up to date on modern warfare techniques and collecting enemy bodies and taking them away with you is standard procedure...
Or maybe the bodies were killed (or at least died) in Israel at some time other than the war?
Can anybody shed some light on this?
UPDATE: A guy in my office with a fair bit of experience with this stuff thinks - and he stressed that he thinks, not knows - that most of the bodies would be people who were killed, captured or kidnapped during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Sounds plausible.
i believe they collected the bodies for intelligence purposes. it is worthwhile to know the identities of those fighting to research enemy strategy and, more likely, to determine whether any leaders on the most wanted list were killed. theyre also rather useful for post conflict exchanges such as this.
Interesting to see that the deal was clearly Israel gets to make a play for international opinion with the funerals and Hezbollah gets to make a play on its local stage with the celebrations. The latter being critical to making the former work...
Or perhaps I'm just being too cynical.