Israeli Settlers Force Palestine Family to Rebury Hussein Asasa

In palestine, the family of 80-year-old Hussein Asasa says Israeli settlers forced it to exhume his body after he was buried near Jenin on Friday. Mohammed Asasa said the family later reburied Hussein Asasa in another cemetery after settlers threatened to bring a bulldozer themselves.

Mohammed Asasa and the burial dispute

Mohammed Asasa said the burial had been coordinated in advance with Israeli security forces and that the necessary permits were provided. He also said the settlers told the family, "They said the land was for settlement and that burial was not allowed. We told them that this is the village’s cemetery, not part of the settlement."

Mohammed Asasa said, "We found that they [the settlers] already dug the grave and reached the body" and added, "We continued digging and got the body and buried him in another cemetery." The family’s account places the confrontation at a cemetery in Asasa village near Jenin, where Hussein Asasa was buried shortly after his death of natural causes on Friday.

Israeli military response near Jenin

The Israeli military said soldiers were sent to the area after receiving reports of a confrontation involving settlers. The Israeli military said soldiers confiscated digging tools from the settlers and remained at the scene to prevent further friction.

That response followed a brief but direct clash over a grave, a rare moment in a wider pattern of settler attacks across the occupied West Bank. On Friday, settlers carried out several attacks, including attacking a child and setting homes and cars ablaze.

UN Human Rights Office condemnation

Ajith Sunghay, head of the OHCHR Palestinian office, condemned the confrontation and said, "This is appalling and emblematic of the dehumanisation of Palestinians that we see unfolding across the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories). It spares no one, dead ⁠or alive," The UN Human Rights Office said the incident fit a broader surge in settler attacks since Israel launched its war on Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023.

The immediate issue for Hussein Asasa’s family is now settled only in the narrowest sense: the body has been moved, and the burial ended somewhere else. The broader fight over access to land near Jenin, and whether Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank can keep pushing into places Palestinians use for burial, remains tied to the next response from Israeli forces and the wider pattern of confrontations in the area.