Despite reports of PM’s decision against practice, authorities transfer Palestinian attacker’s corpse to relatives for burial
Israel on Friday returned the body of a Palestinian man to his family, a day after he was shot dead when he attacked an IDF soldier with an ax.
The return of the assailant’s body took place despite reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the practice stopped.
The assailant was shot by soldiers at the scene of the incident, near the al-Aroub refugee camp north of Hebron. He was later identified as Ibrahim Brad’aih, 54, a Hamas operative who had previously been held in Israeli prison.
The ax apparently hit the soldier in the helmet and he was unharmed, according to unconfirmed accounts of the incident.
Earlier Thursday, two 12-year-old Palestinian boys were arrested in Jerusalem’s Old City after police discovered three knives concealed in one of their coats.
The Israel Police said it appeared the children were planning to carry out a stabbing attack. They were stopped for inspection after they raised the suspicions of policemen at the scene.
The children were also found to be carrying a goodbye letter to their parents.
Earlier this week, the prison service said it has approved the early release of a 12-year-old Palestinian girl who confessed to planning to carry out a stabbing attack in a West Bank settlement. Prison service spokesman Assaf Librati said Monday that authorities had decided to release the girl on April 24 — six weeks before her scheduled release. He said the decision was made because of her “young age.”
In the past six months since a wave of attacks began in October 2015, 29 Israelis and four foreign nationals have been killed. Nearly 200 Palestinians have also been killed, some two-thirds of them while attacking Israelis, and the rest during clashes with troops, according to the Israeli army. Many of the attacks were carried out by Palestinian minors.
The number of attacks, however, appeared to be declining considerably in the past month.
Terrorist attacks carried out in Israeli-controlled areas in March decreased by 26 percent over February, making last month’s tally of 123 incidents the lowest recorded since July.
As reported by The Jerusalem Post