Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Qadura Fares: “Israelis unique in many unprecedented acts that no state on the face of the earth does. One of them, and perhaps the most criminal of them, is that it takes bodies as hostages for cheap political negotiations. This is only done by crime gangs, and I haven’t heard that even crime gangs do this. Crime gangs abduct living people sometimes and hold negotiations with their family or people connected to them, but holding bodies is something that no one has done before Israel (sic).”
[Official PA TV, Giants of Endurance, April 8, 2024]
Note that Hamas has held the bodies of Israeli soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014, and is currently holding the bodies of dozens of Israelis murdered during the 2023 Gaza war.