The occupation authorities are holding the bodies of 7 prisoners who died inside Israeli prisons, and are refusing to release them, according to a statement issued by the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights today, Friday.
Al-Mizan Center confirmed that this comes within the framework of the Israeli occupation´s policy of detaining the bodies and taking them as hostages to bargain over them and achieve political goals.
The center pointed out that “the policy of detaining the bodies of martyrs has become an official policy adopted by the Israeli occupation authorities after they enacted laws and issued decisions and court rulings that allow the detention of bodies for dozens of years, as the number of bodies held since 2015 has reached 325, 325 of whom are 26 from the Gaza Strip.”
The Center drew attention to a decision issued by the Israeli Supreme Court, with a panel of 7 judges, on September 9, 2019, with a majority of 4 judges against 3, which claimed that the military commander had the authority to detain the bodies of Palestinian martyrs and bury them temporarily for the purposes of using them as future negotiating papers.
The Center stressed that “the lives of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are at risk, in light of the lack of the components of the right to health care and services, the continuation of the policy of medical negligence, and the inadequacy of preventive measures against the spread of epidemics, which threatens their right to life. In other cases, the matter actually led to Death of the detainees.
Al Mezan Center stated that the occupation authorities refuse to disclose the names of those whose bodies are being held, and the places and conditions of their detention, and refrain from autopsies, announcing the cause of death, and issuing death certificates. This is what the center described as “a grave violation of the rules of international humanitarian law, especially what is stipulated in Articles (129, 130) of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
The Center called on the international community, especially the high signatories to the Geneva Conventions, to assume its legal and moral responsibilities towards the residents of the occupied Palestinian territories, and to pressure the occupation authorities to release the detained bodies, including the bodies of detainees who died inside prisons, and to end the suffering of their families and enable them to bury them in a way appropriate according to their culture and religious teachings.”
