Israel returns dead Palestinian militants

Two armed men, clad in black uniforms and bandanas, kissed the forehead of a
suicide bomber’s mother as the vehicle carrying his body arrived. Her
21-year-old son, Ramzi Obaied of Islamic Jihad, killed 24 Israelis in a 1996
attack in Tel Aviv.

“My son was a hero,” said the black-clad woman, who identified herself as Um
Hidar. “The enemy feared him even after his death, for they kept his body.”

Mirvat Zaoul’s husband, Mohammed Zaoul, killed four Israelis in a 2004 suicide
attack in Jerusalem. She said she thought her 11-year-old son would be sad
to hear that his father’s remains would be returned to the West Bank.

“But he was happy,” she said. “He said, ‘I’m going to visit his grave every
day and put a flower there for him.'”

Palestinian government ceremonies honouring the dead militants were to be held
in the West Bank and Gaza later.

“We hope that this humanitarian gesture will serve both as a
confidence-building measure and help get the peace process back on track,”
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.

“Israel is ready for the immediate resumption of peace talks without any
preconditions whatsoever,” Regev added.

Abbas has given no sign that the gesture would persuade him to return to
talks.

He said the “major obstacles to resuming negotiations” were Israel’s refusal
to freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem,
and to negotiate on the basis of the lines Israel held before capturing
those territories in 1967.

Palestinians see those areas as the core of a future state that would also
include Gaza.

Israel rejects that demand. Israeli-Palestinian talks stalled more than three
years ago and have failed to take off again despite US mediation, primarily
because of the dispute over settlement construction.

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