Israel to Legalize Holding Bodies of Slain Palestinians

TEHRAN (IQNA) – The Zionist regime of Israel’s parliament (Knesset) is expected to approve a controversial bill that allows police to hold bodies of the Palestinians killed by the regime’s forces and not hand them over to their families for burial.

The bill, co-sponsored by right-wing Israeli lawmakers Anat Berko and Bezalel Smotrich, has passed its first reading, and will be put to vote in two more readings later on Wednesday.

If approved, the law authorizes the Israeli police to determine the conditions under which the funerals for the Palestinian victims will be held.

It applies to the slain Palestinians from the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem al-Quds, but not from the West Bank.

Under the law, Israeli police could issue an order to postpone the handing over of the Palestinians’ bodies until those organizing the funeral promise to meet certain conditions.

The conditions include a limit on the number of participants at the funeral and a ban on some individuals’ participation as well as a specified time, site and route for the procession, Press TV reported.

In special cases, the Israeli police could even demand the posting of a bond to guarantee that certain conditions are carried out during the burial.

The police would also be permitted to delay transferring the bodies if it deems that the funeral could lead to a loss of life or injury.

Back in January, Israeli lawmker Jamal Zahalka described the act of preventing someone’s burial as shameful.

“All cultures see burying the dead as a commandment, and preventing a burial is an act of villainy. You are giving Jews a bad name,” he said.

Israel dramatically increased holding bodies of the slain Palestinians since the beginning of a wave of unrest across the occupied Palestinian lands in October 2015. 

In July 2017, however, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the police do not have the legal authority to delay returning bodies to their families. 

In a joint statement in March 2016, the Palestinian prisoners’ rights group Addameer, and the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah) condemned the Tel Aviv regime’s policy of confiscating the 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.”