Israel- Tel Aviv to release remains of Palestinian after 35 years 

(MENAFN - Arab News) The Palestinian national campaign to retrieve martyrs' bodies on Saturday said that Israel would release the remains of a Palestinian fighter after holding them for 35 years in the secret Israeli cemeteries known as the Cemeteries of Numbers.

Salem Al-Khilleh, coordinator of the campaign, said the Israeli authorities would transfer the remains of Hafiz Mohammed Abu Zant on Sunday at the Jaljoulyah checkpoint near the West Bank city of Qalqilyah.

Palestinian lawyer Haitham Al-Khatib from the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center said Abu Zant's family would receive the remains after DNA tests have confirmed the identity.

Al-Khilleh said the Palestinian Authority (PA) would hold a formal ceremony to mark the transfer. Representatives of the PA, notables and leaders of various national and Islamic political factions and powers will participate in the ceremony.

For his part, Al-Khatib said the release of Abu Zant's remains is "a victory for his family and the Palestinian people."

Abu Zant, from the West Bank city of Nablus, was a fighter of the Palestine Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Revolution. In 1976, the patrol aimed to move toward Nablus based on a commandment order to avenge the killing of a Palestinian girl in the city by Israeli soldiers. The patrol confronted a number of Israeli soldiers near the Jiftlik Military Base in the Jordan Valley where clashes continued for 11 hours.

Abu Zant and the other two fighters Mashhour Al-Arouri from the village of Arourah, to the north of Ramallah, and Khaled Abu Zayyad from the district of Jaffa were killed after they "defied Israeli orders to surrender."

Al-Arouri's remains were retrieved in August 2010 and were buried in his village.

The Palestinian Minister of Detainees and Ex-detainees Issa Qaraqi' said Israel holds remains of 317 Arab and Palestinian "martyrs" who were involved in military attacks against Israel. He added that the "detention of the martyrs' remains in the Cemeteries of Numbers without proper burials is a punishment to their families."

The minister said that "holding of the martyrs' remains for many years creates doubts that Israel killed them after detention or harvested their organs."