Israel Releases Hizbollah Spy

In this case, the exchange may not have been deliberate:

Israel frees Hizballah spy, gets soldiers’ remains

When Israel handed over a convicted Hizballah spy to Lebanon on Sunday, officials were surprised when the Islamic terrorist group in turn handed over a coffin-like box containing body parts of Israeli soldiers it says were killed in the 2006 Lebanon War.

The box was sent to the medical examiner’s office for analysis, but it also contained the dog tag of Sergeant-Major Ron Mashiah, who was killed in a helicopter crash during the Second Lebanon War.

The Israel Defense Forces has said that 20 of the soldier who died in that war were not buried intact. The military has precise documentation of the body parts missing and DNA, so it can prove if any of the body parts are a match.

Israeli officials said they were unaware that there would be an exchange when they handed over the spy.

Israel is well known for its increasingly controversial policy of trading for the return of Israeli soldiers, especially when the rule of not releasing terrorists "with blood on their hands" has been less than iron clad.

Though in this case it was not deliberate, the idea of trading for the remains of Israeli soldiers could become equally controversial:

Israel has traded hundreds of prisoners is return for a single captive soldier. But Boaz Ganor, a terrorism expert in Israel, said this provides a moral victory for the enemy and provides no incentive to keep prisoners of war alive.

"I think it is a mistake to release living prisoners for dead ones," he said. "I think this should be an ironclad rule, especially when we are talking about an arch-terrorist like Kantar ... I think Israel should not cross this line."

Unfortunately, in recent years the Israeli government has appeared to be less than cautious when it comes to the finer points of prisoner exchanges.

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