CAIRO, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Arab League (AL) condemned Israel on Monday for holding bodies of Palestinians killed by the Israeli forces during the prolonged conflict.
"Israel still holds bodies of many Palestinians killed by its forces in 'cemeteries of numbers' to hide its crimes against them," an AL report on the Israeli violations against the Palestinians said.
The report said Israel holds the bodies of some 249 Palestinians since the 1960s and still refuses to return the bodies to their families, describing the Israeli behavior as an act of collective punishment.
The report said that the Israeli authorities also steal the organs of killed Palestinians.
The decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict emerged since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Western-backed creation of Israel in 1948.
The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital in the light of the UN-proposed two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders.
However, 24 years of U.S. sponsored peace process has so far failed to give the Palestinians a state on the territories occupied in 1976 that include the Gaza Strip, West bank and East Jerusalem.
