Summary
HCJ 5887/17, Ahmed Musa Jabareen et al. v. The Israeli police et al., in which the Israeli Supreme Court held that the police were required to return the bodies of three Palestinian citizens killed by police, as no law authorised withholding them — the ruling after which the Knesset passed Amendment No. 3 to authorise the practice, as Adalah’s Discriminatory Laws Database presents it (Discriminatory Laws Database, lines 491-621).
Details
- Adalah filed the petition on 20 July 2017 against the policy of withholding the bodies of slain Palestinians, after police shot and killed three Palestinian citizens of Israel on 14 July 2017 in connection with a shooting at Al Aqsa Mosque and withheld their bodies (lines 530, 552-554).
- The Court’s decision, given under Legal challenges in the entry as delivered on 25 July 2017, was precedent-setting in the entry’s account: the police were required to return the bodies of the three Palestinians, as no law authorized the government to withhold them (lines 552-554).
- Following the decision, the Knesset passed Amendment No. 3 to the Counter-Terrorism Law, 5776-2016 on 7 March 2018, granting police the authority to withhold the bodies of Palestinian citizens and East Jerusalem residents and to impose restrictions on funerals (line 532).
Where sources disagree
- Within the same entry, the Context section dates the Supreme Court’s ruling to 26 July 2017 (line 530), while the Legal challenges section and its sub-entry give the decision as delivered on 25 July 2017 (lines 552-554), and a press release listed in the entry is dated 26 July 2017 (line 608). Both dates are recorded as printed, not resolved.
Related pages
Discriminatory Laws Database, Counter-Terrorism Law (Amendment No. 3), 2018 — withholding bodies, Counter-Terrorism Law, 5776-2016, Adalah, Israeli Supreme Court, Knesset