Israel: Court rules against holding Palestinian bodies

By Said Amoury

JERUSALEM (AA) - The Israeli Supreme Court on Thursday evening ruled that Israeli government authorities cannot hold onto the bodies of Palestinian martyrs or bury them in specially designated cemeteries.

The court ruled in favor of the families of Palestinian martyrs seeking the release of the bodies of their children being held by Israel, said Muhammad Mahmoud, a lawyer for the Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Committee.

Mahmoud said that the court affirmed that Israeli authorities have no right to hold onto the bodies because there is no law enabling it to do so.

The ruling postponed for six months handing over the bodies of slain Palestinians in refrigeration or in “cemeteries of numbers,” where anonymous numbers on graveside stakes are used to identify Palestinians interred after being killed during alleged attacks on Israelis or while in detention.

The court gave Israeli authorities six months to pass a law authorizing it to hold onto the bodies, which will be handed over to their relatives in case of absence of a relevant law.

Israeli authorities are currently holding 249 bodies of Palestinians in the "cemeteries of numbers," in addition to 10 others in refrigeration, according to figures issued by the national NGO campaign to recover the bodies of the retained martyrs bodies.