[News] Rights group says Israel currently holding 19 bodies of recently slain Palestinians and 260 more

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Rights group says Israel currently holding 19 bodies of slain Palestinians

Feb. 9, 2018 - http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=779839

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- 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.

The latest bodies to have been taken by Israeli forces were the bodies 
of 19-year-old Hamzeh Zamaareh 
<http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=779826> and Ahmad Nasser 
Jarrar, 22, <http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=779822> 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.

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.

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.”
-- 
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