Return body of killed Palestinian child, settlers urge Israel

Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have appealed to the Israeli defence ministry to hand over the body of a Palestinian youth shot dead by the army so he can be buried by his family.

Seven rabbis were among around 30 residents of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc who called on Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman to "immediately" deliver the body of Khaled Bahar, 15, for burial, in a letter seen by AFP on Thursday. 

Bahar was shot dead on 20 October as Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinian stone-throwers in the Beit Ummar sector of the West Bank.

The letter's said an investigation by the army had found that Bahar "apparently had nothing to do with the stone-throwers".

"We, inhabitants of Gush Etzion, with links to residents of Beit Ummar and neighbouring villages, ask that the family be allowed to bury the young man," the letter reads, noting that the Bible does not allow bodies to go unburied.

Also among the signatories were the poet Eliaz Cohen and Michal Frouman, a young woman who was stabbed by a Palestinian assailant in January when she was pregnant.

Since October 2015 and the start of a new wave of attacks, many of which have targeted settlements in the West Bank, Israeli forces have confiscated the bodies of killed Palestinians, often for several months.

Under former defence minister Moshe Yaalon, the army had started to return the bodies as a means to reducing tensions.

But his successor Lieberman ordered a resumption of the policy of confiscating the bodies in June. 

In the past 13 months, violence has claimed the lives of 238 Palestinians, 36 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese national, according to an AFP count.

Israeli authorities say most of the Palestinians were killed while carrying out attacks. However, Palestinian officials have accused Israel of planting weapons on Palestinians and of using excessive force, often shooting attackers armed with knives to kill and from long distance. 

Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some were killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza.