JERUSALEM: Israel on Thursday transferred to Palestinian authorities the bodies of dozens of Palestinian militants whose attacks killed hundreds of Israelis, saying it hoped the move would help restart peace efforts.
The militants had been buried, some for decades, in a desolate Israeli military cemetery for ‘enemy combatants’ in the occupied West Bank. They included more than 20 suicide bombers who killed more than 200 Israelis in attacks from 1995 to 2006.
The remains of 80 Palestinians were handed over to Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and 11 bodies were slated for transfer to the Gaza Strip, controlled by rival Hamas Islamists.
‘It is our hope that this humanitarian gesture will serve both as a confidence-building measure and help get the peace process back on track,’ said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
‘Israel is ready for the immediate resumption of peace talks without any preconditions whatsoever,’ he said.
Abbas has demanded a halt to Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as a condition for returning to peace talks that collapsed over the settlement issue in 2010.
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas both planned official memorial ceremonies later in the day. The militants are regarded by Palestinians as martyrs in a struggle for statehood.
‘Palestine on Thursday glorifies its heroes,’ said a presenter on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa radio. ‘With the return of the remains of the heroes, some of whom blew themselves up for Palestine, we hope the spirit of resistance and the smell of gunpowder will return to the alleys and streets of villages and refugee camps.’
For some Israelis, the handover revived memories of Palestinian attacks that shook their country to the core.
Among the bodies handed over were those of seven Palestinians who landed by sea at night in Tel Aviv in 1975 and seized a hotel, the Savoy, demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners. The gunmen were killed in an Israeli commando raid the next morning. Eight hostages and three soldiers, including the commander of the commando unit, were also killed. (UNI)