The Israeli Ministerial Council for security and political affairs (the Cabinet) agreed in a session held on Monday morning to adopt the recommendation of the State Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, to appeal the Israeli “Supreme Court’s” ruling on holding the bodies of Palestinian martyrs for the purpose of “bargaining in negotiations”, and request further negotiations again. The Cabinet confirmed that the Israeli government is determined to keep holding the bodies, and threatened to legislate a new law that allows it to do so legally. In doing this, the
government finds a way around the Supreme Court’s ruling which states that the government cannot continue to hold the dead bodies.
Cabinet members stressed, yesterday, that the “bodies of saboteurs will not be returned”, and that the “principles mentioned in the opinion of most of the court judges are not acceptable”. The Cabinet decided at the end of the session to appeal to the Supreme Court and request “further consideration”, members also agreed to postpone proposing a new legislation for that purpose until the Supreme Court makes a decision regarding the new request.
