Erekat appeals to Quartet to pressure Israel to release bodies

The PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat has called on the Middle East Quartet to put  pressure on Israel to return the bodies of alleged Palestinian attackers still being held by the Israeli authorities.

The call was made in an open letter sent to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, United States Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

A statement made available to the media in Accra quoted the Erekat as saying, "I call upon you to instantly take action and exert diplomatic and political pressures on Israel to immediately release bodies of Palestinian martyrs killed by Israeli forces and settlers".

The statement said withholding the bodies of Palestinians was a form of "collective punishment" by Israel against the Palestinian people, which he described as illegal under international law.

The PLO also called for the unconditional release of a Palestinian journalist in Israeli custody whose 62-day hunger strike has brought him close to death ahead of an appeal by the prisoner's lawyers before Israel's Supreme Court this week.

Muhammad al-Qiq, a 33-year-old journalist from the southern West Bank town of Dura, went on hunger strike on November 24, 2015 to protest his administrative detention — without charge or trial in Israeli prison.

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement on Monday that Israel must release him immediately, condemning the "unlawful practice of administrative detention" as well as "severe and unjust acts of torture" committed by Israel's prison authorities.