The Israeli Knesset approved, on Wednesday evening, in a preliminary reading, a bill that prohibits the return of the bodies of Palestinian dead to their families, and instead buries them in cemeteries inside Israel known as “enemy slain cemeteries” or “numbers cemeteries.”

This comes in the context of a wave of racist and authoritarian legislation passed by the Knesset (parliament) or still pending, targeting in particular Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the 1948 territories, under a government dominated by the extreme right in Israel.

The private Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported that the bill, which was submitted by MK Michal Buskila of the right-wing Likud party, was approved by 40 members out of 120, while 8 members objected.

The newspaper did not clarify the position of the remaining 72 Knesset members, and whether they participated in the voting session or not.

The bill is scheduled to be referred to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee for discussion, before being returned to the Knesset plenum for a vote on it in three more readings, to become an effective law if approved.

The bill states that “those who die while committing a terrorist act will be buried in a cemetery designated for enemy dead inside Israel.” The bill also gives the prime minister exceptional authority to return the body to the family of the deceased, in special cases.

The bill's explanation of the need for it stated: "The funerals of terrorists (referring to the perpetrators of operations) are used to express support for terrorism, and many cases have witnessed the raising of banners, chants and speeches inciting further terrorist acts," he claimed.

The "enemy cemeteries" or "number cemeteries" are burial sites owned by the Israeli military, designated for the burial of the bodies of perpetrators of armed operations and soldiers from enemy armies.

These cemeteries contain hundreds of bodies of Palestinians, Egyptians and other Arabs killed by the Israeli army over the decades and refused to hand over to their families for political reasons. The graves bear numbers instead of names, while Israel withholds information about the identities of those buried, according to human rights sources.