On Thursday, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Commission for Palestinian Prisoners and Ex-Detainees Affairs (official) called on countries of the world to “pressure Israel to release the bodies of martyrs it is holding.”
The Front said in a statement, a copy of which was received by Anadolu Agency: “We demand that the countries of the world with double standards face their responsibility in pressuring the occupation to return the detained bodies of the martyrs.”
The front considered that “Israel’s detention of the bodies is an extension of the ongoing crime of occupation, and a form of expression of the Zionist occupation of its fascism, brutal racism, and disregard for all human and legal values.”
And she demanded that the file of the detained bodies be considered one of the national priority issues that must be raised in all popular, official and diplomatic forums, as it is “a continuous crime, not only against the families of the martyrs, but against all the Palestinian people.”
- Advertisement -
And called on the Front to “participate in the largest campaign of attribution and pressure to demand the recovery of the bodies of the martyrs detained by the Zionist occupation.”
Earlier Thursday, the Israeli army announced that it had received the body of a settler who was detained by Palestinian gunmen in the Jenin camp in the northern West Bank, “after security efforts and coordination with the Palestinian security services.”
In turn, Abdel Nasser Farwana, head of the Studies and Documentation Unit at the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, said: “The Israeli occupation is holding 253 bodies in the number cemeteries, while 118 bodies are being held in the mortuary.”
Abdel Nasser added, to Anadolu Agency: “The occupation is holding the bodies of 10 Palestinian prisoners who were martyred inside the detention centers.”
He continued, “Detaining the bodies of the martyrs is an official and organized policy that the occupation has followed for decades.”
He pointed out that “the occupation’s policy of detaining the bodies is a violation of the basic rights of the deceased and his family, and an act contrary to international laws and norms.”
Farwana called on international and human rights institutions and countries of the world to “pressure the occupation to recover all the bodies they are holding”.
The “number graves” are simple burials surrounded by stones without evidence. A metal plate is installed over each grave bearing a number, not the name of the owner of the body. Each number has a special file kept by the Israeli security authorities.
In recent years, Israeli and foreign media have revealed 4 “numbers graves”, one of which is in a military area at the junction of the Israeli, Syrian and Lebanese borders, two in two military areas in the Jordan Valley, and the fourth in the north of the city of Tiberias.
In September 2019, the Israeli Supreme Court issued a decision authorizing the Israeli military commander to temporarily detain and bury the bodies of Palestinians killed by the army for the purpose of using them as “future negotiating papers.”
