Israel’s top court rules body of Palestinian won’t be returned to family

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Israel’s High Court of Justice on Wednesday denied an appeal seeking the release of the body of Palestinian Ahmad Erekat, which has been held by the government for more than a year.

Erekat, aged 26, was shot to death in June 2020 after the army said he committed a car-ramming attack in Abu Dis in the West Bank.

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The appeal, which was filed by the Erekat family, was denied – despite the fact that his body has been held in violation of a 2017 security cabinet decision that was in force at the time of the incident involving Erekat.

Under that decision, only the bodies of Hamas militants who committed attacks, or others who committed an exceptionally brutal attack, could be held. However, three months after the appeal was submitted to the court, the cabinet decision was amended to include the bodies of any Palestinian engaged in any terror activity and/or in possession of a weapon regardless of his or her affiliation.

The High Court decision was supported by two justices – Neal Hendel and David Mintz. Hendel wrote in the majority opinion that the revised cabinet decision “grants a greater weight to security considerations or the exchange of prisoners over the dignity of the dead terrorist and his family, but I was not convinced that the military commander’s decision to retain the body of the late Erekat is – in the current reality – beyond the bounds of reasonableness and proportionality.”

Israel claimed that Erekat – nephew of the late Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ senior diplomatic negotiator – was shot to death because he threatened the lives of the border policemen at the checkpoint. An investigative report published this February by the London-based Forensic Architecture organization, in conjunction with the Ramallah-based human rights group Al-Haq, cast doubt on this, with its reconstruction showing that the vehicle was traveling at a speed of 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) an hour and never accelerated.