Laith Al-jnaidi and Tarek Chouiref
27 August 2026•Update: 27 August 2026
Israel has decided to hand over the body of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy more than nine months after Israeli forces killed him and withheld his remains, a Palestinian group said Wednesday.
The National Campaign for the Retrieval of Palestinian Martyrs’ Bodies said Jadallah Jihad Jumaa Jadallah from the Al-Fara’a refugee camp in Tubas was killed by Israeli army fire during a raid on the camp on Nov. 16, 2025.
His body has remained in Israeli custody since then.
The campaign said the decision followed a petition filed with the Israeli Supreme Court in March demanding the return of the child’s body.
After repeatedly granting prosecutors more time to respond, the court received notice Wednesday that Israeli authorities intended to hand over the body in the coming days, though no specific date was given.
The campaign said withholding Jadallah’s body for more than nine months had deprived his family of the right to bid him farewell and bury him.
In figures released Wednesday ahead of the annual National Day for the Retrieval of Palestinian Martyrs’ Bodies, the group said Israel is holding the remains of around 1,700 Palestinians, including 799 whose identities are known.
Among the identified bodies are those of 81 children under 18, 99 Palestinians who died in Israeli prisons and 10 women, it said.
The campaign said another 256 bodies are held in so-called “cemeteries of numbers,” where graves are marked with numbers rather than names and Israel retains information on the identities of those buried there.
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that authorities could withhold Palestinian bodies for use as bargaining chips, a policy that was later expanded to cover Palestinians accused by Israel of carrying out attacks.