Defense Minister Ehud Barak has suspended Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's instruction on Monday to transfer 84 bodies of terrorists to the Palestinian Authority. Barak explained the move might hurt efforts to free kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit.
The Prime Minister announced Monday that the bodies, including at least two who belonged to Hamas, would be handed over to the PA as a “goodwill” gesture towards the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in August.
Barak’s suspension of the transfer could prove embarrassing to Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been blamed by mainstream media and of the Schalit family for not advancing negotiations with mediators to free more than one thousand terrorists from Israeli prisons for the return of Schalit. Schalit was kidnapped five years ago in a lethal raid by Gaza terrorists on an IDF checkpoint at a Gaza crossing. He is assumed to be alive, but his condition is not known.
Prime Minister Netanyahu apparently acted on the basis of advice from the military, which issued a statement that "upon completion of administrative work, and in coordination with all the relevant officials, it was decided to comply with the Palestinian request and hand over the bodies.”
All of the bodies are those of terrorists who murdered Israelis since 1967, and the list includes some of the most gruesome terrorist attacks, such as the Palestinian Authority woman terrorist who blew herself up in Haifa's Maxim restaurant in 2003, killing 21 people.
The two bodies of Hamas terrorists are those of the Awadallah brothers, who were commanders of a Hamas wing that was responsible for a terrorist attack at Cafe Apropos in Tel-Aviv in 1997, killing three people, and for the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Sharon Edri in 1996, who was murdered while in captivity.
IDF soldiers killed the two terrorists in Hevron in 1998.
Although Barak said he feared the transfer would harm negotiations to bring Schalit back home, it was the military establishment under his control that previously said the transfer was unrelated to Schalit. The timing of Monday’s announcement of the transfer was due to an Arab news agency breaking the story.