The Israeli army on Sunday began transferring to a new cemetery the remains of some 300 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters killed in the south and during attacks on northern Israel, reported the Daily Star.
The bodies, hitherto buried in two graveyards near the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Shemona, were placed in labeled caskets and interred in a cemetery near the village of Amiad in the same area.
Israel has kept the remains to exchange them one day for those of Israeli soldiers who disappeared in Lebanon.
In 1998, Israel also returned the bodies of 40 Lebanese in exchange for that of Sergeant Itamar Ilya, who was killed in 1997 in a bungled Israeli commando raid on Insarieh, in the south.
Israeli military sources said the current transfer of remains to new graves was unconnected to any deal that could be worked out for the return, dead or alive, of three Israeli soldiers captured by the Lebanese Hizbollah movement last October in the occupied Shebaa Farms, said the paper – Albawaba.com
