Israel has returned to the Palestinian Authority (PA) the bodies of four terrorists who carried out deadly terrorist attacks against Israelis, including the body of the terrorist who blew himself up in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001.
The PA-based Safa news agency reported on Tuesday that the terrorists whose bodies were returned include brothers Adel and Imad Osallah, Hamas terrorists who planned attacks against Israel and who were eliminated near Hevron by IDF soldiers in 1998.
In addition to Izz al-Din al-Masri, the Sbarro suicide bomber, Israel also reportedly handed the body of suicide bomber Tawfiq Mahamid, who carried out a suicide attack west of Umm al-Fahm and who belonged to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the so-called “military wing” of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party.
The head of the PA’s legal aid center was quoted by Safa as having claimed that “the Israeli occupation” delayed the transfer of the bodies for an hour and a half for an unknown reason. The news agency also reported that the PA's security forces prevented supporters of Hamas from waving the group’s flag as the transfer of the bodies was taking place.
The attack at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in August of 2001 was one of the deadliest terror attacks in Israel’s history, and it took place during the Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War.
15 people were killed in the Sbarro attack, including five members of the Schijveschuurder family from the community of Neria in Binyamin.
Ahlam Tamimi, the female played a key role in the atrocity, including escorting the suicide bomber to the attack, was released in 2011 in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.