Report: Israel enlisted Europe to help recover soldiers’ bodies from Gaza

Israel requested that European officials serve as mediators in negotiations with Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas, in a bid to recover the remains of two IDF soldiers killed in the Strip during Operation Protective Edge in the summer, the London-based al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper reported Monday.

According to the report, Israeli security sources contacted German officials as well as those of several other European entities with the inquiry last month.

Neither Israel or Hamas confirmed the report, according to Israel Radio.

In October, Mohammed Nazzal, a senior figure in Hamas’s political wing, stressed that his group would demand that Israel “pay a price” for every bit of information regarding the whereabouts of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul’s remains. Nazzal did not indicate what the group would demand in exchange for such information.

Goldin and Shaul were killed in separate incidents during fighting in Gaza during the summer’s 50-day military campaign. They were both declared dead based on evidence the army acquired, but their bodies were never recovered by Israel.

Israel has only negotiated directly with President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, not with the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip.

Backed by the so-called Middle East Quartet of the US, EU, UN and Russia, the Jewish state demands that Hamas recognize Israel, accept previous agreements and renounce terrorism as preconditions for direct negotiations with the Islamist group.