Israeli occupation forces compelled a Palestinian family late Friday to exhume their son’s grave and transfer his body to another burial site in the northern occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian media reports.

Jenin residents told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA that the IOF forced the family to remove the body after claiming the cemetery was located too close to an Israeli settlement.

Local sources said IOF initially began digging up the grave of a man who had been buried earlier in the day in the cemetery of the village of Asasa, in preparation for removing the body.

Harrowing ordeal endured by grieving Palestinian family

According to the sources, Israeli forces later arrived at the site and ordered the family to exhume the body, relocate it, and bury it elsewhere. The IOF reportedly alleged that the cemetery was situated too near Tarsala, the area associated with the former settlement of Sanur near the town of Jaba’, south of Jenin.

Israeli authorities allowed settlers to return in April to the former settlement, which had been built on usurped Palestinian land belonging to the town of Jaba’, nearly two decades after its evacuation in 2005.

Under former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, "Israel" withdrew from settlements in the Gaza Strip and several settlements in the occupied West Bank, including Sanur, as part of the unilateral “disengagement plan” implemented in 2005 following a series of military setbacks.

Since then, WAFA said Israeli troops and settlers have repeatedly carried out raids on the towns of Jaba’ and Silat ad-Dhahr in the Jenin governorate, with Palestinians facing repeated attacks and incursions.

The agency also reported that Israeli authorities issued demolition notices to several shops along the Jenin-Nablus road belonging to residents of Jaba’, claiming the structures were located too close to the settlement area.

Rising settlement expansion and violence

On April 29, Israeli authorities approved plans for the construction of 126 settlement units in Jenin, despite international criticism of settlement expansion in the occupied territories.

The occupied West Bank, including the eastern part of al-Quds, has witnessed escalating Israeli aggression in recent months, including raids, arrests, shootings, and excessive use of force, alongside increasing attacks by settlers targeting Palestinians and their property.

According to official Palestinian figures, Israeli military aggression and settler violence have killed at least 1,155 Palestinians, wounded around 11,750 others, and resulted in the detention of nearly 22,000 people since October 2023.

Source:Websites