Israel holds 676 bodies of Palestinian martyrs, advocacy group says

The Israeli occupation authorities are withholding 676 Palestinians martyrs in the so-called cemeteries of numbers and in refrigerators, according to the National Campaign to retrieve Martyrs’ Bodies, a Palestinian advocacy group.

In a press statement, the campaign announced that the number of bodies has increased this week, following the Israeli killing of three Palestinians in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, March 11, the Wafa News Agency reported.

Some of the bodies consist of approximately 60 children and nine women.

It also noted that among the detained martyrs whose identities have been documented, 529 are from the West Bank, 79 from the Gaza Strip, 46 from occupied Jerusalem, 11 from the territories occupied in 1948, nine Lebanese, one Canadian, and one American of Moroccan origin.

Since October 7, 2023, the occupation has documented the detention of 272 martyrs.

Additionally, over 1,500 unidentified martyrs have been detained since the beginning of the war on Gaza, according to various Israeli sources.

It is important to note that the Israeli authorities have been holding the bodies of hundreds of Arab and Palestinian martyrs for over five decades. These bodies are buried anonymously, with numbers engraved on metal plates attached to the remains. Each number corresponds to a specific file about the martyr, maintained by the Israeli security agency.

Israel refuse to issue death certificates to the families of the martyrs or provide lists of the names of those whose bodies are being held, as well as the locations and conditions in which they are detained. They have even admitted to chaos and negligence in the detention of these bodies, with some reportedly going missing.

In September 2019, the Israeli Supreme Court allowed military commanders to temporarily withhold Palestinian bodies for use as “bargaining chips” in future negotiations.

Palestinians commemorate August 27 as a national day to recover the bodies of Palestinian and Arab martyrs held by the Israel.