PA daily columnist calls for Israel to return bodies of terrorists, calling them “the Shahid (Martyr) heroes”
Headline: "Israel continues to 'play' with the corpses of the Shahids (Martyrs)"
by columnist Adel Abd Al-Rahman
"[Israeli PM] Benjamin Netanyahu's government reneged at the last moment on what it had declared – that it would release the bodies of 84 Shahids from the numbered cemeteries, despite the fact that senior personnel in the Israeli security establishment had informed Minister Hussein Al-Sheikh of their agreement to transfer the bodies to the family members. The Shahids' families and the Palestinian political leadership had planned to receive the bodies of the Shahid heroes for reburial in the nation's cemeteries in the Palestinian towns, by their names and at the sites of battles which they fought against the Israeli occupation army… Although there is no excuse for this backtracking other than the baseless pretexts of the Israeli leadership, such as the false claim that handing over the bodies of the 84 Shahids could influence the prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, or the false claim that some argue that some of the bodies of the Shahids belong to fighters whose hands were 'smeared' with the blood of Israelis, and other statements and pretexts full of detestable Israeli racism…
Withholding the bodies of the heroic Shahids reflects a policy of Israeli thuggery in which there is a deepening of hostility and hatred between the two peoples. In addition, to date, [Israel] is not committed in any way to the prisoner exchange [deal], because the prisoner exchange operation is entirely independent of returning the bodies of the heroic Shahids."
by columnist Adel Abd Al-Rahman
"[Israeli PM] Benjamin Netanyahu's government reneged at the last moment on what it had declared – that it would release the bodies of 84 Shahids from the numbered cemeteries, despite the fact that senior personnel in the Israeli security establishment had informed Minister Hussein Al-Sheikh of their agreement to transfer the bodies to the family members. The Shahids' families and the Palestinian political leadership had planned to receive the bodies of the Shahid heroes for reburial in the nation's cemeteries in the Palestinian towns, by their names and at the sites of battles which they fought against the Israeli occupation army… Although there is no excuse for this backtracking other than the baseless pretexts of the Israeli leadership, such as the false claim that handing over the bodies of the 84 Shahids could influence the prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, or the false claim that some argue that some of the bodies of the Shahids belong to fighters whose hands were 'smeared' with the blood of Israelis, and other statements and pretexts full of detestable Israeli racism…
Withholding the bodies of the heroic Shahids reflects a policy of Israeli thuggery in which there is a deepening of hostility and hatred between the two peoples. In addition, to date, [Israel] is not committed in any way to the prisoner exchange [deal], because the prisoner exchange operation is entirely independent of returning the bodies of the heroic Shahids."