New law authorizes Israeli police to indefinitely hold Palestinian corpses

Rasa - The Israeli regime’s legislative body, the Knesset, has approved a controversial bill that allows police authorities to indefinitely keep corpses of alleged Palestinian assailants.

News ID: 436779

Date: 09 March 2018 - 18:59

RNA - The act unveiled Thursday was passed late Wednesday, just hours after the passage of yet another contentious legislation, authorizing the regime’s interior ministry to strip Palestinians in East Jerusalem al-Quds of their permanent residency permits “if they are involved in terrorism.”

The bill was sponsored by two Knesset members from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud and the religious-nationalist Jewish Home parties.

Arab lawmaker Yousef Jabareen of the opposition Joint List party described the bill as "a delusional and draconian law of a delusional government."

According to Press TV, the other legislation on revoking permanent residency permits of Palestinians was also introduced by a Likud lawmaker and passed by 48 votes to 18, the Knesset said.

The Israeli regime announced in 2016 that it would not release the bodies of alleged Palestinian assailants killed during attacks for burial unless Palestinians living in Gaza released the remains of two Israeli military officers believed to have been killed during a 2014 Israeli military campaign in Gaza.

Netanyahu signaled back in November 2017 that Israel would not repatriate the bodies of five Palestinians killed when the Israeli army blew up a tunnel allegedly stretching from the Gaza Strip into the occupied territory.

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled in December that the policy was illegal and gave the regime six months to enact new legislation.

The revised act authorizes police district commanders "to set conditions for returning the body of a terrorist for family burial," according to a Knesset statement.

According to the new act, in case the commander decides that a funeral may trigger another attack or turn into a political rally in support of violence, he can then impose limits on the time, location and number of mourners and "a body could be held until the family agrees to the terms."

Israel took over the control of East Jerusalem al-Quds during the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it, in a move never recognized by the international community.

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