No ‘rest even in death’: Bodies of 35 Palestinian children confiscated by Israeli forces
Occupied Palestine (Quds News Network)- Israeli occupation forces confiscated and continue to withhold from families and relatives the bodies of 35 Palestinian children killed in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem since 2016, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) said, in what grieving families see as an act of “collective punishment.”
According to DCIP, the Israeli forces have withheld the bodies of at least 40 Palestinian children since June 2016. Five of the children’s bodies have since been released to their families, while 35 Palestinian children’s bodies remain withheld by Israeli occupation authorities.
Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP, says, “Palestinian children cannot rest even in death as Israeli authorities continue confiscating children’s bodies and withholding them from their families indefinitely.”
Israeli forces and settlers have killed 64 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2024, including two United States citizens, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
145 Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, according to DCIP, when the Israeli military began a full-scale military offensive on the Gaza Strip.
In 2023, Israeli forces and settlers killed at least 121 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, DCIP added. Israeli forces and settlers shot and killed 103 Palestinian children with live ammunition, 13 Palestinian children were killed in drone strikes, four Palestinian children were killed by missiles fired from a U.S.-sourced Apache attack helicopter, and one child was killed in an Israeli warplane airstrike.
Israeli occupation’s practice of confiscating and withholding Palestinian bodies is a violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, which include absolute prohibitions on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, as well as stipulate that parties of an armed conflict must bury the deceased in an honorable way, DCIP said.
For families, the practice amounts to collective punishment in violation of international humanitarian law.