The sites where the bodies of hostages were found
The sites where the bodies of hostages were foundIDF Spokesperson

Back on 16 July 2008, the Government of Israel treated the Israeli public as if we were idiots, subjecting us to a media spectacle with the "breaking news" as, surprise surprise, we saw two coffins on our television screens

instead of a living Goldwasser and Regev. The cabinet knew Goldwasser and Regev were dead when they approved a deal which included the release of live Hezbollah and other terrorists in exchange for their bodies.

After all, the Chief Rabbi of the IDF had already ruled that Goldwasser's wife could remarry. However, the fiction that Goldwasser and Regev might still be alive made it easier for the cabinet to approve the deal.

Since then, I think we have all become older and wiser.

Let's respect each other for a moment and speak the truth about the situation today:

Every hostage-taker has a smartphone in his pocket. As both Paltel and Jawwal reported on their X accounts, the cellphone network in the Gaza Strip is working, thanks to the fuel UNRWA forwarded to them.

Any idiot can turn off their smartphone's geotagging feature to take a proof of life photograph of the hostage they are holding and forward it to a third party, who then forwards it on.

Hamas doesn't need to physically scour any area within the Gaza Strip to ostensibly find hostages held by other elements. Everyone knows everyone,and assembling a list and then annotating that list with agreed-upon proof of life photographic evidence is a task that can be completed in a matter of hours, with the terrorists "letting their fingers do the walking".

Any ceasefire endangers the lives of our soldiers now fighting in the Gaza Strip.

The LIVES of our soldiers now in the Gaza Strip are worth more than any number of the DEAD BODIES of hostages. (They are certainly worth as much as the Jews who will die if we free terrorists in a deal or those who are endangered by a ceasefire.)

So, the conclusion is obvious: If Israel decides to try for a deal, proof of life is a prerequisite for any deal,
and only hostages documented as alive now are relevant.

The sooner this policy is embraced and proclaimed by everyone, the more likely we can achieve results without needlessly endangering our soldiers in the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Aaron Lernerand his late father Dr. Joseph Lerner founded the Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA) government accredited news organization in 1992,which provides an ongoing analysis of developments in Arab-Israeli relations.