The strategic plans of the Israeli army will not change in light of the discovery that Israel has a soldier missing in action, says the former head of the POW and MIA unit in the army, but the next 24 hours will likely be significantly affected.
Col. (res) Lior Lotan likens the situation to the predicament Israel found itself in after a team of Naval Commandos was ambushed deep in Lebanon in September 1997. The team lost 12 men, and the rescue squad, operating under fire, was forced to leave one body and several body parts behind. The body of Staff Sgt. Itamar Iliya and the other remains were only returned to Israel in June 1998, in exchange for the body of Hadi Nasrallah, the son of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Lotan says that the only way to shift a soldier’s status from MIA to KIA, or from missing to dead, is by providing “tangible, solid evidence.”
Although troops will be operating in a hostile environment Lotan says that Special Forces will surely be combing the area in order to obtain the necessary evidence. “Even in a war zone,” he says, even at considerable risk, “it will be done.”
— Mitch Ginsburg
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