The Palestinian Authority (PA) has published the names of 91 Palestinians killed since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967, and whose remains arrived on Thursday morning in Ramallah and Gaza. An official funeral ceremony is to be held later in the day, according to Al Jazeera.

According to WAFA news agency, the remains of 79 Palestinians delivered to Ramallah will be laid at the presidential headquarters to receive official funeral ceremonies attended by President Mahmoud Abbas while the remaining 12 were sent to the Gaza Strip, Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein al-Sheikh said.

Seventeen bodies will be buried in a mass grave in Ramallah because their families could not be identified.

The repatriation of the bodies forms part of a deal to end a mass hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The return of the bodies was announced on May 14 by the office of Binyamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, in what it called “a gesture to President Abbas”, Al Jazeera reported. 
”Israel is ready for the immediate resumption of peace talks without any preconditions whatsoever,” he said.

Abbas has demanded a halt to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a condition for returning to peace talks that have been frozen since the settlement issue in 2010.

Activists expect Israel to release more remains in the next weeks.