'Israel' hands over body of Palestinian killed 5 months ago

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
9 Jul 2022 15:53
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After more than five months of detaining his body, the Israeli occupation finally hands over the body of Faleh Mousa Jaradat in Al-Khalil.

The Israeli occupation handed over the body after it spent five months in captivity

The Israeli occupation authorities handed over the body of martyr Faleh Mousa Jaradat, 39, to his relatives in the town of Sa'ir, east of Al-Khalil.

The martyr's relatives explained that the Israeli occupation handed over Jaradat's body at the Jalameh checkpoint east of Beit Lahm, five months after his "Tel Aviv's" forces seized his body and kept it in captivity.

The viewing will take place at his family home in Sa'ir before Jaradat's body is buried, a right of which he has been deprived of for five months.

بملابس العيد نشيّع شهداءنا

سعير تشيع جثمان الشهيد فالح جرادات /الخليل pic.twitter.com/S6VUDoHpCS
— باسل ابو حسان (@basel_abuhassan) July 9, 2022

The Israeli occupation forces murdered martyr Jaradat on January 17, 2022, after shooting him at the "Gush Etzion" junction north of Al-Khalil, claiming that he was attempting to carry out a stabbing attack.

Pictures and footage showed that the Israeli occupation forces shot the young man, leaving him lying on the ground, injured.

The Palestinian Resistance factions mourned Jaradat, saying his blood and that of all the martyrs will be "a beacon for the free revolutionaries embarking on the path of liberation and salvation from the clutches of the criminal enemy."

Withheld bodies: Israeli brutality at its most

The practice of Israeli occupation confiscating and withholding Palestinian bodies violates international humanitarian law and international human rights law, which stipulate absolute prohibitions on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and require parties to bury the deceased in an honorable manner. For Palestinian families, the practice amounts to collective punishment, which is also prohibited by international humanitarian law.

Adding salt to injury, the occupation imposes one of the most serious restrictions by obstructing any autopsy of the remains.

"Israel" withholds the bodies of the martyrs as a part of its policy to avoid autopsies that would expose the IOF's heinous crimes. #Palestine pic.twitter.com/uL9QzG41UF
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) June 16, 2022

Furthermore, the Israeli occupation holds Palestinian bodies in freezing conditions for months, denigrating their condition and making it more difficult for medical examiners to investigate the causes of death.

As a consequence, it becomes extremely difficult to conduct evidence-based investigations into unlawful killings and excessive use of force against Palestinians, most notably children killed by Israeli occupation forces.

At the beginning of this month, social media users and activists launched a campaign to recover the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces.

“Israel” has 103 Palestinians' bodies in refrigerators, and another 256 have already been buried without allowing families to perform their last rites, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club.

The Israeli occupation is violating international law by withholding the bodies of murdered #Palestinians and keeping them in cemeteries classified by numbers rather than their own names. #Palestine pic.twitter.com/b9Ye4zhBl9
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) February 23, 2022

In 2019, the Israeli occupation Court approved the detention of the bodies of Palestinians killed by IOF to be used as a bargaining chip in the future, a move Palestinians and rights groups condemned as inhumane.

“Israel’s” biomedical abuse and plunder of Palestinian bodies, most notably children, for usable organs and tissues is a widespread and highly contentious practice that persists to this day.

The longtime head of the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine, Israeli Dr. Yehuda Hiss, casually admitted in one of his interviews to harvesting eyes, skin, bone, solid organs, and other parts without consent from the bodies of Palestinians withheld by the Israeli occupation forces.