Israel to Return Remains of Palestinian Fighter
Date : 8/10/2011 Time : 12:31
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=17678
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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.