The Israeli Minister of Defense, Avigdor Lieberman, agreed, on Thursday, on returning the body of a Palestinian, who was killed by Israeli forces last month, to his family for burial.
Hebrew-language news sites reported that Lieberman agreed on returning the body of Muhammad Youssef Elayyan from Qalandiya, north of Jerusalem in the central occupied West Bank, to his family.
Elayyan was shot and killed by Israeli forces in September, in the al-Musrara neighborhood near Damascus Gate for allegedly attempting to carry out a stabbing attack.
Israeli forces killed six Palestinians over the 24-hr period Monday night to Tuesday night.
Muhammad Zaghlul Rimawi, 24
Muhammad Youssef Elayyan, 26
Ahmad Mahmoud Muhsen Omar, 20
Muhammad Ahmad Abu Naji, 34
Naji Jamil Abu Assi, 18
Alaa Ziad Abu Assi, 21https://t.co/S4GSehGaRU pic.twitter.com/4CyGhn7d7G— Ben White (@benabyad) September 19, 2018
Sources added that the body would be returned at the Beituniya checkpoint on Friday.
Human rights organizations have widely condemned the policy of withholding bodies, with prisoners’ rights group Addameer calling it a form of “collective punishment” against Palestinians who had not been accused of any wrongdoing, also noting that it “adds to the severe grief and trauma of families of the deceased.”
(Ma’an, PC, Social Media)
