The Palestinian Center for Human Rights condemned on Tuesday the detention of the body of the 18-year-old Palestinian fisherman Ismail Abu Riala who was killed by Israeli forces on Sunday.

The human rights group demanded Israel to immediately release the body of the fisherman for burial in his hometown in Gaza Strip.

Withholding dead bodies “violates the fundamental rights of the deceased and his family and is considered unjustified and immoral,” they said.

The man was killed and two others were injured on Sunday when Israeli Navy forces opened heavy fire on their boat claiming they had crossed the designated fishing zone off the Gaza shores.

Israel is currently withholding the bodies of 17 Palestinians who were killed since October 2015. It also holds the remains of 260 Palestinians killed since 1967 in the “cemeteries of numbers”, the Director of the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC).

In January 2018, the Knesset approved a preliminary law that allows Israeli police to place preconditions on the victims' families whenever they want to release one of their children's bodies.

The preconditions include holding the burial ceremonies late at night with a limited number of attendees, and the admission of a limited number of close family members.

Israel is the only country in the world that withholds the bodies of slain people as bargaining chips or sets conditions on their funerals prior to releasing them to their families.