The Israeli authorities returned the body of killed Palestinian 16-year-old Samah Mubarak to her family, on Friday evening, outside of Israel’s Ofer detention center in Beituniya west of Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces had shot and killed Mubarak, on January 30, at the al-Zaayim checkpoint, on a road that leads to the entrance of the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, east of occupied Jerusalem.
? After the detention of her body for 36 days .. The occupation handing over the body of the martyr Samah Mubarak, 16 yrs, killed near an #Israeli checkpoint, western of #Ramallah city. #IsraeliCrimes #ICC4Israel pic.twitter.com/XZGx0zHrID
— Dr. Basem Naim (@basemn63) March 9, 2019
Israel has held Mubarak’s body since the shooting, accusing her of wielding a knife in an attempt to carry out a stabbing attack against heavily armed Israeli soldiers deployed at the checkpoint.
Mubarak is from the Qaddura refugee camp in central Ramallah.
After 36 days of detention of her body!
The occupation told the family of the martyr Samah Mubarak his intention to hand over her body at five o'clock Friday afternoon,
in front of the Ofer checkpoint west of #Ramallah.#InternationalWomensDay ? pic.twitter.com/wOnQMJUDWF— Sir? Shafee™ ابن شفیع (@SirShafee) March 8, 2019
Israel has long had “cemeteries for the enemy dead,” also referred to as “cemeteries of numbers,” where Palestinians who died during attacks on Israelis are held in nameless graves marked by numbers.
Israel dramatically increased its policy of withholding bodies since the beginning of a wave of unrest across the occupied Palestinian territory in October 2015, although it has scaled back on the policy in recent months.
??#Palestine || The farewell of martyr Samah Mubarak (16) years old in Ramallah city, the girl was shot dead by Israeli occupation forces at a checkpoint near Jerusalem last January. pic.twitter.com/PB9ifWIRHV
— Aya Isleem ?? #Gaza (@AyaIsleemEn) March 9, 2019
A joint statement released in 2016 by Addameer and the Israeli minority rights group Adalah condemned Israel’s practice of withholding bodies as “a severe violation of international humanitarian law as well as international human rights law, including violations of the right to dignity, freedom of religion, and the right to practice culture.”
(Ma’an, PC, Social Media)
