Ethical difference between living and slain hostages?

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The return of the 20 living hostages and the cease-fire deal signed last week have granted Israeli society the ability to finally breathe a sigh of relief.

After two years of desperate struggle and a bloody reality, the Israeli public has concluded the first, lengthy chapter that began on October 7, 2023.

Israel now faces a new chapter – the return of the bodies of all deceased hostages remaining in Gaza. As they are transferred to Israel slowly and gradually, a huge question mark remains over Hamas' ability to locate and retrieve all 13 hostages whose bodies or remains are still held in the Strip.

It remains unclear whether Hamas, international or Israeli teams will be able to find all the deceased hostages in Gaza, vast swaths of which have been reduced to ruins. It will also be difficult to avoid the question of what role the efforts to locate the hostages' remains will play in shaping the future relations between Israel and Gaza.

Will the return of all hostages be a precondition for advancing negotiations? Will they be conducted in parallel? Does one hinge on the other, and should it?

Professor Yechiel Michael Barilan, a physician who directs ethics education in Tel Aviv University's medical school, believes that only by striving for peace, healing, coexistence and mutual respect will Israel be able to bring about the return of all deceased hostages.

Barilan is one of the founders of Tel Aviv University's Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics. Alongside his research on medical ethics, he also deals with ethical questions through the lenses of history, law and Jewish religious law, or halakha.

"Returning the deceased is paramount from both the ethical and social standpoints," he says. "And if Hamas is keeping and maliciously delaying their return, this is indeed a problem."

"However, linking together the living and deceased hostages is a moral and tactical mistake, and perhaps also a subconscious attempt at averting diplomatic progress," Barilan adds.

He says he believes Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana was right when he removed the yellow hostage pin from his lapel while addressing the Knesset following the return of the living hostages. "Sanctifying life necessitates a separation between the living and the dead," Barilan argues.

He says he believes Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana was right when he removed the yellow hostage pin from his lapel while addressing the Knesset following the return of the living hostages. "Sanctifying life necessitates a separation between the living and the dead," Barilan argues.

Since Israel's establishment in 1948, a total of 244 soldiers' bodies have never been found. One hundred and eight of the fallen soldiers went missing during the 1948 war, 16 from the Yom Kippur War, 69 soldiers died when the Dakar naval submarine sank in 1968, while others went missing during other military activities.

"For the families, it's an immense pain and all efforts to bring as many deceased hostages for burial in Israel must be exhausted posthaste," Barilan notes. "But history teaches that from a pragmatic viewpoint, you don't always succeed, and at a certain point, further effort does not bring results."

"There's a practical limit to how many you can get back without peace based on mutual desire and cooperation, stopping the war is not enough," he adds.

Noting that Likud lawmaker Miri Regev suggested burning the body of Yahya Sinwar, the slain Hamas military chief, Barilan thinks "would only further ignite the dehumanization of the residents of Gaza and Hamas.

"However, in a state of hostility, it will be more difficult to retrieve the hostages," Barilan believes. He recalls how the 1979 peace agreement with Egypt allowed Israel to send delegations to dig and find fallen soldiers.

But is Israel even able to think about striving for peace and coexistence after the October 7 attack? Barilan is confident that it can.

"The massacre is a shocking event and a deep wound, and war is always a national trauma, but the argument that we will never be able to make peace with the Palestinians is nonsense," he says. "We're not the only place where horrors were committed."

"We forget how quickly we made peace with the Germans after the Holocaust," the professor explains.

"We can and must reconcile with the Palestinians," he argues. "The destruction and death we have caused in Gaza are horrible. I won't go into the question of whether it was justified or not. War sometimes justifies horrible destruction and death, but only if there is a commitment to reconstruction and equality and mutual respect afterward."

According to Barilan, the return of the bodies of the deceased raises further questions regarding what will be considered the end of the process, and when Israelis will be able to remove their hostage lapel pin in good conscience.

"As opposed to a living human, when it comes to a body, the question arises – what will be considered a returned body of a hostage," Barilan says. "Will parts or remains of the body count? What about the other parts? Will it be until the last fingernail of the last deceased hostage? There's no end to it."

He explains how, also by looking through Jewish tradition, the idea that each person has their own personal marked grave is "from the late Kabbalah period." In earlier periods, he argues, "the tradition was to bury, and according to the halakha, marking the grave was meant to avert the risk of the impurity of the dead, and not as a place for a family to visit."

The professor understands the families' emotional struggle. "We're talking about very intense emotions that have a late Kabbalistic source," he says. "But it's not halakha and not in the inner core of Judaism. Of course, we need to make an effort and not spare any means to find the deceased hostages, but it can't be the only aspect to focus on in the process with the Palestinians."