NABLUS, October 8, 2011 (WAFA) – The Israeli government agreed to return remains of a Palestinian fighter killed in a battle against Israelis in 1976 to his family for proper burial, Saturday said a local rights organization.
The remains of Hafiz Muhammad Abu Zant will be handed over to the Palestinians on Sunday at a Qalqilia checkpoint, north of the West Bank, according to the National Campaign to Recover Bodies of Martyrs.
Abu Zant, who was born in 1954 in the city of Nablus, was part of an armed Palestinian group when he was killed in 1976 in a military operation against Israeli soldiers near al-Hamra checkpoint in the Jordan Valley.
Israel has kept his body since then in unidentified cemetery in the north of the country and had refused to release it. It is still holding around 350 bodies of Palestinians killed in battles against Israelis over the last 40 years, according to the National Campaign.
Israel had agreed two months ago to release remains of around 100 of the Palestinians it was keeping in what became to be known as “numbers cemeteries,” but retracted its decision after news of the deal broke.
M.H./M.S.
