The Israeli government is currently holding the bodies of 19 slain Palestinians killed in the past two years, along with 260 bodies of those killed since 1967, according to a Palestinian human rights group.
Director of the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC) Issam Arouri told the Voice of Palestine radio station that Israeli forces continue to withhold the remains of 260 slain Palestinians buried in the so-called “cemetery of numbers” in Israel, in addition to holding the bodies of 19 Palestinians, who were killed by Israeli forces since 2016, in morgues.
A Palestinian-French activist who advocates for Palestinian prisoners has himself been detained by Israel without charge or trial for over 5 months https://t.co/FSM51tAG4A pic.twitter.com/zEM0WYUIQH
— The IMEU (@theIMEU) February 6, 2018
The latest bodies to have been taken by Israeli forces were the bodies of 19-year-old Hamzeh Zamaareh and Ahmad Nasser Jarrar, 22, who were killed earlier this week.
Israel dramatically increased its policy of withholding bodies since the beginning of a wave of unrest across the occupied Palestinian territory in October 2015, although it has scaled back on the policy in recent months.
People all over the world are celebrating Ahed Tamimi's 17th birthday and demanding Israel free her and all Palestinian prisoners #FreeAhedTamimi https://t.co/LpdcN5G0lL pic.twitter.com/hhZocIpQ0y
— Electronic Intifada (@intifada) January 31, 2018
Israel has long had “cemeteries for the enemy dead,” also referred to as “cemeteries of numbers,” where Palestinians who died during attacks on Israelis are held in nameless graves marked by numbers.
Israel has attempted to negotiate the release of Palestinian bodies as well as several Hamas affiliates detained from the Gaza Strip in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers held by Hamas.
Oren Hazen is an Israeli lawmaker known for racist outbursts. In December, he boarded a bus filled with families of Palestinian prisoners and called them "insects" and "dogs" https://t.co/xOWT4MMGSJ
— The IMEU (@theIMEU) February 4, 2018
A joint statement released in 2016 by Addameer and the Israeli minority rights group Adalah condemned Israel’s practice of withholding bodies as “a severe violation of international humanitarian law as well as international human rights law, including violations of the right to dignity, freedom of religion, and the right to practice culture.”
During his interview with Voice of Palestine, Arouri said that “Israel was the only country in the world that withholds the bodies of slain people for bargaining purposes or sets conditions on funerals for releasing them to their families.”
(Ma’an, PC, Social Media)
