The mysterious case of the missing militant body

When Israel and Hezbollah went forward in July with their controversial deal that returned two Israeli soldiers killed at the start of their 2006 war, Hezbollah was expecting to receive the body of Dalal Mughrabi, one of the most famous Palestinian militants.

Mughrabi was a teenager in 1978 when she joined a group of militants on a boat in southern Lebanon that landed in Israel where they commandeered a bus in a botched attack that ended with the militants killing 37 people before most were killed themselves.

There is a famous photograph of Ehud Barak (former PM, current Defense Minister), who led the Israeli military response, shooting right after he fired several shots into Mughrabi's dead body as reporters looked on.

Three days after the attack, Israel launched the first major assault on the PLO in Lebanon, a move that dragged Israel into a long military quagmire to the north.

As part of its deal this past summer with Hezbollah, Israel agreed to return Mughrabi's body.

But when they went to the graveyard to dig up her remains, they couldn't find them.

After days of searching, the Israelis came up empty.

Despite Hezbollah's outrage, Israel quietly admitted that they had apparently lost Mughrabi's remains.

Now, Israel's Maariv newspaper is spinning a novel theory: Mughrabi's body was carried away by an unknown underground river current of sorts that washed her into the Jordan River.

This is a place where miracles have long been reported, so don't dismiss this novel theory too quickly.

According to Maariv, the Israeli military discovered in 1994 that other bodies buried in the same cemetery had shifted underground over the years.

You have to get to the end of the article to get the official Israeli military response, which is that they don't know anything about such miraculous underground currents washing away buried bodies.

But the ground is muddy, and coffins have shifted over the years, so who knows?

It probably won't be long before some Mughrabi devotee somewhere declares the missing militant miraculously rose from the dead...

Below is the full article from Maariv.

The Earth Swallowed Her Up

When the IDF Rabbis arrived at the enemy bodies graveyard in the Jordan Valley a surprise awaited them, the body of the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, which was supposed to be sent to Hezbollah as part of the prisoner exchange, wasn't found. The assessment: An underground flow carried the coffin away. The IDF: The ground is muddy but underground currents were not known about.

The hopes of Palestinians were raised on July 16th.

They expected to receive the body of their hero -- the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi -- as part of the prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, and victory celebrations broke out.

But Israel did not transfer the body -- and not because of a last minute trick.

There was a completely different reason: An underground current dragged Dalal Mughrabi's body away and the “Bride from Jaffa” disappeared.

Today terrorists' bodies are not buried but returned to the families.

Just a few are buried in one of two cemeteries for fallen enemies. The first one was set up at the end of the 1970s near the near the Adam Bridge in the Jordan Valley. The Central Command uses this for infiltrators from Jordan, terrorists from the Territories [West Bank and Gaza Strip]. And terrorists who infiltrated from the sea and made their way to the Territories. The other cemetery was built in 2000 and is located near the Amiar base in the north.

Mughrabi was buried in the cemetery in the Jordan Valley along with the terrorists who, along with her, conducted the attack in the Coastal Road in 1978. The bodies of Mughrabi and the others were buried according to regulation says the Army Rabbinate.

Here's how it works: Every body, in accordance with the orders of the area commander, is transferred to the Criminal Pathology Institute. A blood sample is taken, a file is opened at the area command and at the Central Command. On the card all the details about the body are written down, including the name and ID number.

The body is photographed wrapped in a blanket, then in plastic, and finally in netting.

The bodies are buried separately in wooden army coffins while their ID numbers are buried with them in the shape of a tag or in a bottle or on a plate. The grave is marked on a map and above it the grave is marked with the ID number. The command is responsible for guarding (the graves) and maintenance in accordance with the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

According to the Rabbinate, terrorists have never been buried in mass graves.

In 1994 something happened in the graveyard connected to the “Blood Bus” which the IDF prefers to keep secret. One of the brothers of the terrorists asked the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, to use his influence with Israel to return his brother's body.

According to him, his brother was one of the two who drowned on the way to conduct the attack.

Prime Minister and Defense Minster Yitzhak Rabin approved the request.

When they started digging “they went down two or three meters and found nothing”, said someone involved in the incident. “They started digging in every direction and found nothing. It turned out that there was movement of the bodies because of underground currents and there was great consternation within the system. There was a suspicion that the bodies had gone into Jordan. In the end, as far as I remember, they found some coffin and transferred it.”

Fourteen years later, a group from the IDF Rabbinate went to the cemetery this time to find the body of Dalal Mughrabi.

The IDF is unwilling to say exactly what happened in the cemetery. The Hezbollah TV station, al Manar, reported that the organization was furious that the body was not transferred to Rosh HaNikra and the IDF said it could not find the body.

As far as is known, all the bodies found in the area were of four men and were transferred to Hezbollah which conducted its own DNA tests.

Dalal disappeared and with her five terrorists who participated in the attack.

The IDF Rabbinate refuses to relate to Mughrabi, but a senior source acknowledges that there is a problem with the movement of bodies.

“One of the problems is that there is no concrete infrastructure in the graveyard of the enemy such are used in our civilian and military cemeteries.”

In the IDF Rabbinate they are considering ordering special coffins made of hard plastic or of concrete with hooks to make them easier to pull out of the ground.

The IDF Spokesperson's office responded: “The IDF has not commented on details of operation 'Returning the Sons.' In the Jordan Valley graveyard nothing is known of underground currents, but because the ground is muddy, since 2001 each coffin has four iron bars attached to it to prevent movement. Likewise each coffin has a bottle or disk with the ID number, so even if the coffin moves a little, we can still tell who is buried in it. The enemy graveyard was located near the B'not Ya'akov bridge until 200 when it was moved to Amiar because of the the type of ground, the desire to prevent the movement of coffins, and for security reasons.”

(Article translated by McClatchy special correspondent Cliff Churgin.)

Comments

[Harry]

"There is a famous photograph of Ehud Barak (former PM, current Defense Minister), who led the Israeli military response, shooting Mughrabi's dead body."

This intrigued me since this is the first time I have ever heard of this allegation. The only photo I was able to come up with was this: http://tinyurl.com/62wyeq

Barak is clearly removing her gun and his own gun is strapped to his back. Do other photos exist? All allegations that I have read about this online in the past 30 minutes or so have not been sourced and are from some vehemently anti-Israel websites.

[Harry]

I see that you changed the text and I guess that means that he did shoot her dead body. Is this a documented fact?