WEST BANK/FILE: After Israel-Hezbollah prisoner and body swap, other Palestinians want the bodies of their relatives too

Record ID: 356540

  • Title: WEST BANK/FILE: After Israel-Hezbollah prisoner and body swap, other Palestinians want the bodies of their relatives too
  • Date: 18th July 2008
  • Summary: UM MUHAMMAD HOLDING PICTURES OF HER SONS (ABU NA'ASA ON THE RIGHT) CLOSE OF SUICIDE BOMBER, ABDUL KARIM ABU NA'ASA (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) MOTHER OF SUICIDE ATTACKER, UM MUHAMMAD, SAYING: "We need help to get our children's' bodies back, be it help from the president, or the Palestinian negotiators, or Hassan Nasrallah, or the Egyptians who are helping in the mediation."
  • Embargoed: 2nd August 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVACTYBDKW0M4L1XTIUVGI1ZOMV
  • Story Text: While Israel buries its slain soldiers, a Palestinian family who's son carried out a suicide attack on Israeli soldiers in 2001 are calling on the Palestinian leaders to work towards the release of the bodies of Palestinians buried in Israeli cemeteries.
    While Israel mourns two slain soldiers who's bodies were returned in a prisoner swap with Hezbollah, relatives of Palestinians buried in numeric cemeteries in Israel called for the release of the bodies of their loved ones.
    Omar Abu Na'asa, father of Abdul Karim Abu Na'asa who carried out a suicide attack in Israel in 2001, called on the leadership to help in securing the release his son's body in order to bury him in the Jenin refugee camp where the family lives.
    Abdul Karim Abu Na'asa and Mustafa Abu Seria, who said they were members of the al-Aqsa Brigades (coalition of Palestinian militias in the West Bank), opened fire in the Israeli city of Afula in 2001, killing two Israelis and wounding 35.

    "Now we have a big hope that our President Mahmoud Abbas will follow in the footsteps of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and ask for the release of the bodies of our children from the Israeli cemeteries," Abu Na'asa told Reuters Television.
    Thousands of Israelis attended the funeral in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya for Ehud Goldwasser, 31, whose capture two years ago along with Eldad Regev sparked a 34-day war in which 1,200 Lebanese and 159 Israelis died.
    The mother of Abu Na'asa hoped that the next swap would include her son's body which is buried in an Israeli numeric cemetery.

    "To help us to get our children's' bodies back, be it the President, or the Palestinian negotiator, or Hassan Nasrallah, or the Egyptians who are helping in the mediation," Um Muhammad said.
    Israel continues to hold on to hundreds of Palestinian bodies, most of them killed while attacking the Jewish state.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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