On February 4, 2024, Israeli border police fatally shot Wadea Shadi Sa‘d Elyan, a 14-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, near the Israeli settlement of Ma‘ale Adumim, outside the city’s boundaries but in the occupied West Bank. The police claim he was killed while attempting to stab an officer, but video footage shows Elyan being shot in the back as he runs away and shot again at close range while he lay motionless on the ground.1 To this day, his body remains in Israeli custody. His parents were never allowed to see his body.

The state continues to withhold his body on the grounds it can be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Hamas, where imprisoned Palestinians and Palestinian corpses might be exchanged for Israelis being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. On July 31, 2025, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s position, citing classified evidence provided by the state to allow the continued withholding of Elyan’s body. Adalah—The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC) had filed a petition on behalf of Elyan’s parents.2

“The case is tied to the whole, big political situation of returning [Israeli] hostages in Gaza and being part of this [exchange] deal. We had nothing to do with Gaza. [Elyan is] not part of Hamas,” Shadi Elyan, Wadea Elyan’s father, told Jerusalem Story.3 “Why can’t he be treated as an individual case where he has the right to be released, and we have the right to bury him?”

Elyan’s body is one of 764 Palestinian bodies held by Israel; 47 of the deceased are from Jerusalem.4 According to Defense for Children International—Palestine, as of February 2025, 45 of those bodies were dead children.5 

Broadly speaking, Israel holds the bodies in one of two ways: in freezers that are situated in morgues, and in several areas in the country designated for unmarked graves. Israel refers to these mass graves as “cemeteries for enemy combatants.” They are located in closed Israeli military zones, and Palestinians describe them as “cemeteries of numbers,” referring to the numbered plaques denoting the location of each corpse.6

Human rights lawyer Budour Hassan, writing in an extensive report on this practice for JLAC, explains that

“Looking specifically at the period after October 7, 2023, the situation has worsened, as if the Israeli authorities are seeking to collect as many bodies as possible for use as bargaining chips,” Rami Saleh, JLAC’s Jerusalem branch director, told Jerusalem Story.8 “This was explicitly stated in the Israeli government’s response to a petition we filed with the Supreme Court, in which they admitted that the army uses these bodies as a means of pressure.”

Since October 7, 2023, 321 bodies have been withheld by Israeli authorities, and only 19 returned. This number pales in comparison to the 253 returned between 2015 and October 2023.9

“The last shifting of this policy [of withholding bodies] was after October 7, [2023,] when Israel included in the criteria [for withholding] bodies, Palestinian citizens of Israel,” said Adalah attorney Nareman Shehadeh Zoabi, who represented Elyan’s family.10 “This is the first time that Israel holds bodies [of] Palestinian citizens of Israel.”

The change was made when Israel’s Supreme Court sided with the Security Cabinet in 2024, finding that withholding Palestinian bodies—even those belonging to persons who had Israeli citizenship—is necessary to facilitate future prisoner exchange deals, since Israelis are still held captive by Hamas in Gaza. The court cited Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law, which codifies Jewish supremacy into law, saying the legislation requires the state “to ensure the safety of members of the Jewish people and its citizens who are in distress or captivity due to their Jewishness or citizenship,” thereby prioritizing Jewish Israeli lives over Palestinian ones.11

To withhold the bodies of Palestinians, Israel’s military relies on a Colonial British Mandate-era emergency regulation, enacted in September 1945. When Israel was founded in 1948, the government adopted an amendment to this regulation, allowing Israel’s military commander to mandate where and when a dead body can be buried. In 1964, the first body was buried in the cemeteries of numbers.12

Israel’s practice of withholding bodies came to a temporary halt after 2004, when Israel’s then attorney general Menachem Mazuz issued a directive stating that the bodies of suspected Palestinian attackers are not to be held for use as bargaining chips in future negotiations. Israel for the next decade proceeded to return all bodies of those interned in the cemetery of numbers.13

But in October 2015, Israel passed a set of punitive measures, including laws authorizing the holding of alleged perpetrators’ bodies, after a wave of stabbing attacks by lone Palestinians. This policy was then formalized by Israel’s government on January 1, 2017, when the Israeli cabinet issued a decision to return the bodies of alleged Palestinian assailants if certain security guarantees were met. Corpses would be withheld, however, if the Palestinian was believed to be a member of Hamas or if the violence carried out was particularly severe.14

Using this practice as punishment or pressure was further legitimized on March 7, 2018, when Israel’s parliament passed an amendment to the 2016 Counterterrorism Law, permitting the District Commander of Israel Police to delay releasing the bodies of alleged Palestinian attackers and restricting their funerals in the name of public order and security by limiting the number of funeral attendees, prohibiting political slogans, and not allowing the family to bury the body in their own cemetery. JLAC considers these restrictions a form of Israeli control and collective punishment over Palestinians.15

The conditions for returning deceased bodies, outlined in the Israeli cabinet’s 2017 decision, changed again following a 2021 Supreme Court ruling in which the court ruled Israel’s military can withhold the bodies of Palestinians for the purposes of negotiations, irrespective of any cabinet decision. This outcome resulted from the state’s refusal to release the body of Ahmad Erekat, fatally shot by Israeli Border Police in 2020 at a checkpoint in Abu Dis after his car hit a police officer at the checkpoint on the day of his sister’s wedding. Close analysis of the available evidence showed this to have likely been an accident, contrary to police claims.16

When asked by the court to explain its reasoning for keeping Erekat’s body, who was not affiliated with any armed groups, the state explained that its policy had changed allowing Palestinian bodies to be withheld regardless—contradicting the 2017 cabinet decision.

“This policy was broadened so the bodies of everyone are held, regardless of their identifications with Hamas or another movement and regardless of the outcome of the so-called attack,” Zoabi said. “So, mainly the criteria now allow holding the bodies of anyone for any reason.”

With these changed guidelines, Israel can keep withholding Elyan’s body and deny his family their rights to bury their son. Reeling from the recent court ruling, Elyan’s family has just one plea now: for Elyan not to become another number.

“Our only aim at the moment is that he’s not given a number and buried somewhere,” Shadi Elyan said, sitting next to Elyan’s mother, dressed fully in black. “We’re only asking he’s kept in a fridge, and then when the decision is made, he can be released, and we can give him a proper burial.”