Israeli Settlers Order West Bank Palestinian Family to Exhume Body

Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank forced a Palestinian family to exhume their father's body from a freshly dug grave in the village of Asasa near Jenin, the family said. The 80-year-old man died of natural causes on Friday and was buried that evening at the village cemetery with all necessary permits from Israel's military, whose forces were present at the site.

Shortly after the burial, villagers alerted the family that settlers had arrived at the grave and were ordering it to be dug up. The settlers stated the land belonged to the nearby Sa-Nur settlement and that burial was not allowed there, according to the family.

The family said the settlers threatened to use a bulldozer to dig up the grave themselves. To prevent that, the family chose to exhume the body. They discovered that settlers had already begun digging and reached the body before the family completed the exhumation and reburied the man in another cemetery.

Video circulating on social media showed people removing what appeared to be a body from a hillside grave as settlers watched and Israeli troops walked behind them. Reuters verified the location as Asasa village. The Israeli military said the funeral had been coordinated with it and that it had not instructed the family to rebury their father.

Soldiers were dispatched after receiving a report of a confrontation involving settlers digging in the area. The military confiscated digging tools from the Israeli civilians and remained at the site to prevent further friction. It stated that it condemns actions that violate the dignity of the living and the deceased.

The UN Human Rights Office condemned the incident. "This is appalling and emblematic of the dehumanisation of Palestinians that we see unfolding across the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories). It spares no one, dead or alive," said the head of the OHCHR Palestinian office.

Sa-Nur was one of 19 settlements evacuated under the 2005 Israeli disengagement plan, which also included Israel's withdrawal of settlers and troops from Gaza. The current Israeli government approved the re-establishment of Sa-Nur a year ago and construction has advanced rapidly.