Netanyahu orders IDF to halt immediate return of terrorists’ bodies

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu on Monday ordered the IDF to stop the immediate return of the bodies of terrorists who were killed after carrying out attacks against Israelis. Until now, under a policy set by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and the IDF chief of staff, Lieut. Gen. Gady Eisenkot, the bodies were returned to the families of the terrorists within a very short time, sometimes on the same day of the attack. Yaalon and Eisenkot believed that the immediate return would calm the Palestinian street.
But now, amid a public controversy over the treatment of an IDF soldier who shot a terrorist in Hebron, and after Netanyahu saw that the majority of the public opposes the policy of the defense minister and the chief of staff regarding the incident, the prime minister decided to halt the return of terrorists' bodies. In other words, it was a step against Yaalon and Eisenkot's policy.