Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (Likud) has vetoed the advancement of a bill which would forbid Israel to return terrorists' bodies to their families or to the terror organizations which they belonged to, Israel Hayom reported.
Gallant has told sources in the coalition that the bill will not achieve its goal and will only inflame tensions.
Under the bill, anyone who was killed after or while performing an act of terror will be buried in a cemetery for the bodies of enemies of Israel. The bill would leave the Prime Minister with the discretion to decide whether to return the bodies of terrorists due to special considerations.
MK Eliyahu Revivo (Likud), who proposed the bill, requested to bring it for approval next Sunday by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, with the goal of bringing it for a preliminary Knesset reading by next Wednesday.
The bill was already on the schedule for discussion by the Committee, but in light of Gallant's opposition, Revivo retracted the bill and it will not be advanced.
Meanwhile, the bill had received broad support both from the coalition and from some of the members of the opposition. In the previous Knesset, an identical bill was proposed by MK Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism) and his party members, and in the current Knesset the same bill was put forward by MKs Ze'ev Elkin and Sharren Haskel of the National Unity party.