Israeli far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Friday that the return of the bodies of 3 Palestinian martyrs killed by the Israeli occupation army near the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank last March was "a grave mistake that will cost us dearly."
Ben Gvir said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant's decision to return the bodies of three Palestinian martyrs belonging to the "Lions Den" group (the Palestinian resistance in Nablus) "will cost us dearly," adding that "it is not too late to lead a strong and offensive security policy."
The Israeli minister noted that the Jewish Power party (the name of the party he leads) will continue to abstain from voting for government decisions in the Knesset (parliament) "until the Israeli government changes direction and adheres to the policy for which it was elected."
For its part, the Palestinian news agency (Wafa) reported that the teams of the General Authority for Civil Affairs received the bodies of 3 martyrs from Nablus who were detained by the Israeli occupation: Uday Othman al-Shami, Jihad Muhammad al-Shami, and Muhammad Raad Debek.
On Thursday, Ben Gvir announced that he and his party's deputies would abstain from voting in favor of government resolutions, despite being part of the government coalition, in protest at what he described as the Israeli army's "weak" response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip last week.
Funeral of 3 martyrs in Nablus last Thursday (Getty Images)
On March 12, the Areen al-Aswad armed group announced that three of its members were killed in a clash with the Israeli occupation army at the Sarra checkpoint, southwest of Nablus.
In September 2019, Israel's Supreme Court issued a ruling authorizing the Israeli military commander to "temporarily withhold and bury the bodies of Palestinians killed by the military for the purposes of future negotiating papers."
The Israeli occupation authorities are still holding the bodies of 133 martyrs since 2015, including 12 martyr prisoners and 12 children and martyrs, in addition to 256 martyrs in the cemeteries of numbers, according to data from the National Campaign for the Recovery of Martyrs' Bodies.