Israel is currently withholding the bodies of 17 Palestinians who were killed since October 2015. Accounting for the bodies of Hamzeh Zamaareh who was killed on Wednesday, and Ahmad Nasr Jarrar who was killed on Tuesday the number increased to 19.

In addition to keeping the bodies in morgues, Israel 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), Issam Arouri, told Voice of Palestine radio.

Israeli authorities have withheld Palestinian bodies before it was legal to do so. Moreover, the Israeli judiciary promoted this policy by granting Israeli courts six months to legalize the practice, Arouri confirmed.

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.