Palestinians hold mass rallies, urge Israel to release martyrs’ bodies

Hundreds of Palestinian people have staged demonstrations in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip to demand the release of bodies of Palestinians murdered and withheld by the Israeli regime’s forces.

The Palestinian Ma'an news agency said the demonstrators in Gaza City participated in a march on Tuesday and called for the release of the body of cancer-stricken prisoner Nasser Abu Hamid, who has attained martyrdom last week after wrestling with cancer in Israeli jails since August 2021.

The participants carried a symbolic coffin adorned with a picture of Abu Hamid from the Red Cross office to the United Nations headquarters in Gaza, demanding that the world body play a role in securing the release of the bodies of Palestinian martyrs.

The demonstrators chanted slogans condemning the Israeli move that deprives the mothers of the martyrs from bidding farewell to their children.

"It is the right of every mother to embrace her son, bid him farewell and bury him," Abu Hamid’s mother said as she attended the march demanding the release of bodies held by the occupation regime.

"I am here for Nasser's body and the bodies of all the detained martyrs, to honor them with burial in the land of Palestine, which sacrificed their lives for the sake of its freedom and independence," she added, stressing the importance of resistance and forcing the occupation to acquiesce in the demand to hand over the bodies of the martyrs.

In an interview with Ma'an news agency, Abdel Nasser Farwana, Head of the Studies and Documentation Unit at the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Prisoners Affairs, said the Israeli regime fears Palestinian martyrs even after their martyrdom and withholds their bodies as a collective punishment for their families.

ME