Palestinians finally buried after Israel held corpses for months

Mohammed Abdulkarim Marshoud a 30-year-old father of four died after a settler shot him in the head in April at the illegal settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. 

The settler who killed him alleged that he was about to be attacked by Marshoud with a screwdriver. Initially the Israeli army said he was about to attack the settler with a knife, but later retracted the statement.

After his death, Marshoud’s family told The New Arab that they were not informed when Israel would hand over his corpse for burial.

The Israeli police held the corpse for more than three months before returning it to the family for a burial at his hometown in Balata refugee camp in Nablus.

Hundreds of locals witnessed the burial at a mosque nearby the refugee camp.

The corpses of two other Palestinians killed by Israel were returned to their families on Saturday.

The body of Mohammed Anbar, 46, was returned to his family on Friday after he was was shot multiple times at a roadblock in his hometown Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank by Israeli soldiers in early April.

Anbar was buried in his hometown on Saturday.

In the occupied city of Hebron, Rami Sabarna, 36, was also buried in his home village of Beit Ommar.

Sabrana was murdered in July by Israeli soldiers while he and other workers were conducting work for the Hebron City Council to repair and expand a road near the Ibrahimi Mosque.

After he was shot, soldiers stopped a Palestinain ambulance from assisting him, leaving him to bleed to death. Once he died an Israeli ambulance arrived, put his corpse in a black bag and took it away.

Legal to confiscate Palestinian corpses

In March, Israeli lawmakers passed a controversial bill allowing police to hold the corpses of alleged Palestinian assailants indefinitely.

The act was passed by 48 votes to 10, a Knesset statement said, hours after another measure permitting the interior minister to strip Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem of their permanent residency permits “if they are involved in terrorism.”

The government announced in 2016 that it would not release for burial the bodies of Palestinian assailants killed during attacks unless Palestinians in Gaza released the remains of two Israeli soldiers believed to have been killed in a 2014 war in Gaza.

Palestinians denounce Israel’s tactic of holding corpses as inhumane, saying it is a form of psychological warfare and collective punishment.