Joint List MKs bill would stop state from holding terrorists' bodies

“Holding bodies is a custom that Israel started in the 1970s and harms the religious sensitivities and shows disrespect for the life of Palestinians, even after their death,” the bill said.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Updated: FEBRUARY 17, 2016 01:07
Ahmed Tibi and fellow Ta'al MK Osama Saadi (photo credit: Courtesy)
Ahmed Tibi and fellow Ta'al MK Osama Saadi
(photo credit: Courtesy)
New legislation seeks to prevent the state from holding dead bodies from a “security or national event” for more than five days.
Joint List MKs Ahmed Tibi and Osama Sa’adi proposed the bill on Tuesday, which states that only the deceased’s family is responsible for his or her burial, according to its will and faith.
“Holding bodies is a custom that Israel started in the 1970s that harms the religious sensitivities and shows disrespect for the life of Palestinians, even after their death,” the bill’s explanatory portion reads.
Tibi and Saadi’s proposal came after an uproar over the meeting of their Joint List colleagues MKs Jamal Zahalka, Haneen Zoabi and Basel Ghattas with 10 families of terrorists who murdered Israelis and whose bodies were being held by the police. One of the bodies was released Monday.
Bodies of terrorists from sovereign Israel, including east Jerusalem, are held by the police until the family agrees to hold a modest funeral, usually at night, to avoid incitement to violence.
The IDF returns bodies of terrorists from the West Bank immediately.
Some politicians have suggested holding on to terrorists’ bodies as a deterrent to terrorism.
Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman has called for Israel not to return any terrorists’ bodies to their families until Hamas returns the bodies of IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, which it has held since Operation Protective Edge in 2014.