‘Israel’ hands over body of slain Palestinian woman killed last year by Israeli forces
Occupied Jerusalem (QNN)- Israeli occupation authorities on Tuesday handed over the body of slain Palestinian Mai Afana who was killed by Israeli occupation forces in occupied Jerusalem in June 2021.
Large crowds took part in the funeral procession of Afana yesterday in her hometown, Abu Dis town in the eastern part of occupied Jerusalem, after her family received her body.
On June 16, 2021, 29-year-old Mai Afana was shot and killed in her car by Israeli occupation forces near the Palestinian village of Hizma, northwest of occupied Jerusalem. Since that day, Israeli occupation has withheld her body.
The Israeli military falsely claimed that Afana “attempted to ram into a number of IDF soldiers, exited her vehicle with a knife drawn and was neutralised in response.”
Afana, a mother of one little girl, was working as a lecturer at Al-Istiqlal Palestinian Security University, located in the city of Jericho, east of the occupied West Bank.
Media coverage: "Palestinians take part in the funeral procession of Palestinian woman Dr. Mai Afana who was shot dead by the Israeli occupation forces at Hizma checkpoint in Jerusalem while she was driving to Ramallah on 16 June 2021 after IOF released her corpse today." pic.twitter.com/Qhj1d0BhVq
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) August 23, 2022
Media coverage: "The daughter of Palestinan slain Dr. Mai Afana, who was shot dead by the Israeli occupation forces on 16 June 2021, cries during the funeral procession of her mother after IOF released her withheld corpse today." pic.twitter.com/ilJshoLAt8
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) August 23, 2022
Regarding withholding Palestinian martyrs’ bodies, for families, Israel’s practice of withholding their sons’ bodies amounts to collective punishment in violation of international humanitarian law.
Since 1967, ‘Israel’ had also established cemeteries of numbers in closed military zones where it held the bodies of Palestinians and Arabs who were killed during the war or the struggle against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, eastern part of Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.
‘Israel’ is still withholding the bodies of 104 Palestinian martyrs killed by its forces since 2015, including the bodies of nine detainees, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees.
Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group, says “the withholding of Palestinian bodies is a standard practice long used by Israel which violates its obligations as an Occupying Power under international law. Customary international humanitarian law stipulates that parties to an armed conflict must respect the dead who “must be disposed of in a respectful manner.” It further obliges parties to the conflict to return the remains and personal effects of the dead to their families. In addition, Article 17 of the Second Geneva Convention requires that the deceased must be held in accordance with the religious rites that they belong to.”
