[News] 19-year-old Palestinian laid to rest after Israeli held the kidnapped body for 10 months

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*19-year-old Palestinian laid to rest after Israeli authorities withheld 
body for 10 months*

Aug. 30, 2016 -http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=772908

The mother of Thaer Abu Ghazaleh holds a rose to remind herself that her 
son's body was in a morgue on his 20th birthday.

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) -- After holding his body in a morgue for more than 
ten months, Israeli forces returned slain Thaer Abu Ghazaleh, 19, to his 
family in occupied East Jerusalem after midnight Monday.

Abu Ghazaleh was shot and killed by Israeli forces in early October 
after he carried out a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv 
<http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=768093> which left four 
Israelis injured.

The teenager’s mother expressed her grief to Ma’an, saying that the 
family would have celebrated her son’s 20th birthday last Saturday, but 
that his body remained in a morgue under Israeli custody instead.

Abu Ghazaleh was buried in occupied East Jerusalem’s al-Mujahidin 
cemetery outside the walls of the Old City.

His mother insisted on laying flowers at his grave after he was buried, 
saying that she placed 19 flowers at his grave and kept the 20th flower 
“to be with me all my life for remembrance.”

She added that the family received Abu Ghazaleh’s body at the cemetery’s 
gate, as large numbers of Israeli troops and police officers deployed 
around the cemetery.

“We shrouded him, performed the funeral prayer, then I carried him in my 
very hands and bid him a final farewell before we laid him to rest,” his 
mother said.

The bereaved mother said the last time she saw Abu Ghazaleh before he 
was killed was during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha last year, 
saying that she was living in Hebron at the time, while her son was at 
their home in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israeli forces closed all roads surrounding the cemetery -- which is 
located almost directly across the street from the Old City’s Herod's 
Gate -- for more than two hours in order to clear pedestrians and 
passersby from forming a crowd in anticipation of Abu Ghazaleh’s body 
being delivered.

Forces also held the family for two hours at the entrance to Herod’s 
Gate, and prevented them from exiting the walls of the Old City until 
the body was delivered to the cemetery, at which time they were allowed 
to cross the empty and heavily guarded streets to attend the funeral, 
according to the director of the Jerusalem office of the Palestinian 
Prisoner’s Society (PPS) Nasser Qaws.

Lawyer Muhammad Mahmoud of prisoners’ rights group Addameer said Israeli 
intelligence forces returned the body after midnight on the condition 
that only 25 family members attend the funeral.

He added that the family was also forced to pay a fee of of 20,000 
shekels (approximately $5,290) as an “insurance fee” to make sure the 
family abided by the rules imposed on them.

According to Qaws, both journalists and passersby were evacuated from 
the area, after Israeli forces threatened to cancel the return of the 
body if they didn’t stay away.

In addition to journalists not being allowed to go to the family’s house 
in the Old City after the burial, Israeli forces did not allow the 
family to set up a tent outside the house, as is customary practice in 
order to receive people who come to offer condolences for three days 
following the burial.

The return of Abu Ghazaleh’s body leaves the number of slain 
Palestinians accused of committing attacks against Israelis whose bodies 
are still being held in Israeli morgues at 13, including including three 
women and three residents of occupied East Jerusalem, among them Bahaa 
Elayyan <http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=772600>, 22, Abd 
al-Muhsen Hassuneh <http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769340>, 21, 
and Muhammad Abu Khalaf 
<https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=770351>, 20.

Earlier this month, Issa Qaraqe, the head of the Palestinian Committee 
of Prisoners’ Affairs, made a statement saying that Israeli authorities 
had approved the “gradual release” 
<http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=772713> of slain Palestinian 
bodies.


Israeli authorities also added preconditions for the release of the 
bodies, stipulating that the funerals be held at 1 a.m. and that only 
the families of the slain Palestinians would be permitted to attend, as 
was seen during Abu Ghazaleh’s funeral after midnight Monday.

The families of the slain Palestinians have appealed the Israeli Supreme 
Court for months, with the court ruling in May 
<http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=771409> that all of the bodies 
of Palestinians held by Israel be released to their families before the 
start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in June.

However, after releasing the body of Alaa Abu Jamal, Israel’s Public 
Security Minister Gilad Erdan ordered that Israeli police suspend the 
return <http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=771623> of the bodies 
just a few weeks after the ruling, claiming that the funeral encouraged 
"incitement" against the state of Israel.

The families have since had to return to court to negotiate the release 
<http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=772124> of their slain family 
members.


In June, Israeli police decided that slain Palestinians from East 
Jerusalem accused of "terrorism" would no longer have funerals in their 
neighborhoods or villages 
<http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=771804>, but would instead be 
buried in cemeteries chosen by the police, adding to the long list of 
preconditions.


While the families of the slain Palestinians have accepted conditions 
set by Israeli police, many bodies have yet to be released by Israeli 
authorities, despite Israeli intelligence agreeing to return the body of 
Bahaa Elayyan <http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=772574>, who has 
been held in an Israeli mortuary in Jaffa for over 10 months.


On the same day of the announcement to release Elayyan’s body, Israeli 
intelligence backtracked on its decision 
<http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=772600> when the family refused 
more preconditions after they had already signed an agreement with 
Israeli authorities and accepted all previous Israeli conditions.


Israeli authorities have dramatically escalated their policy of 
withholding slain Palestinian bodies 
<http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=768641> since a wave of unrest 
swept across the Palestinian territory and Israel in October, during 
which time 220 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis and 32 Israelis 
have been killed by Palestinians.


The United Nations released a report in May 
<http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=19926&LangID=E> 
stating that Israeli authorities have prohibited autopsies from being 
conducted on Palestinian corpses, and that the bodies were kept in poor 
and inhumane conditions, “stacked on top of each other.”


“The bodies returned to the families are often disfigured, sometimes 
beyond recognition, denying the families the right to accord, with 
dignity, final religious rites,” the report read.


Human rights organizations have also widely condemned the policy, with 
prisoners’ rights group Addameer calling it a form of “collective 
punishment” against Palestinians who had not been accused of any 
wrongdoing, also noting that it “adds to the severe grief and trauma of 
families of the deceased.”

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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