Tit for tat with IDF punishment — it’s unfortunately the only way to ram the lesson home, since nothing kinder has worked.
[IsraelTimes] The High Court of Justice rules unanimously that the state is not obligated to release for burial the bodies of slain terrorists who are Israeli citizens, in light of the state’s position that it may want to exchange those bodies in the framework of an agreement for the return of Israeli hostages and dead being held by Hamas in Gaza.Six petitions were filed last year to the court against the state by relatives of the slain gunnies arguing that the cabinet’s decision to not release the bodies of their relatives was unlawful, was taken without legal authority, and did "severe and blatant harm" to the dignity of the dead and of their families.
The state argued that negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages and the dead being held by Hamas
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...are "dynamic" and are at a sensitive stage, and that at present "it is not possible to rule out that holding the bodies of these gunnies will be needed for the purpose of [bringing back] the captives and missing."
Hardline conservative justice David Mintz, who penned the opinion for the three-justice panel, wrote that the court has "the most limited scope" for intervening in government decisions relating to security decisions, and that such intervention is reserved for extreme situations.
Mintz also writes that the military commander has the authority under a 1945 regulation to withhold the release of the bodies of terrorists, and that the court previously ruled in September last year that this applied to Israeli citizens as well.
The judge concluded that the decision not to release the bodies by the government "is a temporary and time-limited decision which is reviewed from time to time by the Cabinet," and that in light of the "current security reality, the ongoing negotiations and their dynamic nature... we did not find that there was any room for our intervention."