JERUSALEM, May 9 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli military said Saturday it is investigating an incident in which Israeli settlers allegedly forced Palestinians to exhume the body of an elderly Palestinian man from a cemetery in the northern West Bank and rebury him elsewhere.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) condemned "any attempt to act in a way that harms public order, the rule of law, and human dignity and the dignity of the deceased."
Israeli media, including state-owned Kan TV and Channel 12, reported that the incident took place on Friday evening, about an hour after the funeral of Hussein Mohammad Khalil al-Asa'asa, 80.
According to the reports, al-Asa'asa was initially buried in the cemetery of the al-Asa'asa village near Jenin in coordination with the Israeli military.
Settlers from the nearby Sa-Nur settlement later arrived at the cemetery and began digging up the grave, claiming it was too close to the settlement, the reports said.
The IDF said soldiers who arrived at the scene confiscated the settlers' digging tools. However, reports said troops remained present while Palestinians were forced to exhume the body and transfer it to a cemetery in the village of Fandaqumiya, farther from the settlement.
The military said its forces stayed at the scene to prevent clashes between settlers and Palestinians.
Separately, a United Nations official condemned the incident, saying Israeli security forces stood by as settlers forced the family to remove the body.
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), wrote on Friday on X that settlers forced the family of the deceased to dig up his body only hours after his burial at the Asasa cemetery south of Jenin.
According to Sunghay, the family later transferred the body to another cemetery while settlers threw stones at them.
"This is appalling and emblematic of the dehumanisation of Palestinians that we see unfolding across the OPT. It spares no one, dead or alive," Sunghay wrote.
He said the cemetery is about 300 meters from the Sa-Nur settlement, which was re-established in 2025.
Sunghay added that Palestinians are now required to obtain Israeli permits to bury relatives in the cemetery, which Asa'asa's family had obtained earlier that day. ■
