Palestinian national, popular, and official actors, called today for an international intervention to get Israel to release the body of Palestinian Bilal Rawajbeh, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces near Huwara military checkpoint, south of Nablus city, on November 4, 2020.
This came during an event called for by the faction coordination committee in Nablus and the family of Bilal Rawajbeh in front of the International Red Cross office in Nablus to demand an international intervention to release the body of Rawajbeh, whose body has been withheld by the Israeli side since he was shot and left to bleed to death nine months ago.
Israel, to this day, refuses to give clear and adequate information on the release of his body.
Rawajbeh, 29, from Iraq Tayeh village east of Nablus, was left to bleed to death by the Israeli soldiers who closed the checkpoint in both directions and prevented Palestinian medics from approaching the scene.
He served as a legal advisor holding the rank of a captain in the Preventive Security Forces, one of the Palestinian Authority’s security services.
“Our message to the whole world is to intervene, assume their responsibilities, and hold the occupying power, [Israel], accountable for its crimes, which violate all international and humanitarian laws,” said Dalal Salameh, member of the Central Committee of Fatah movement, who took part in the event.
“Withholding the body of a deceased individual is against the law,” said Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.
“There is no [Israeli] law that allows the withholding of a body without at least stating the reason for doing so. There is, likewise, no law that allows authorities to refrain from providing information to the deceased’s family,” said the legal center.
Israel is withholding the bodies of more than 70 Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces. In addition, around 250 bodies of Palestinians, also killed by Israel, are kept in numbered graves in cemeteries in the north of Israel, some withheld since 1948.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency