RAMALLAH:  Israel on Thursday began handing over the bodies of 91 Palestinians who were killed during anti-Israeli attacks, some of whom died over 40 years ago, officials on both sides said.

The transfer began before dawn on Thursday when Israel formally gave the bodies to the Palestinians at a location near the West Bank city of Jericho, with 79 of them immediately transferred to Ramallah, and the other 12 sent to Gaza.

“At 4:00 am (0100 GMT) today, we received the remains of 91 martyrs, 79 from the West Bank and 12 from Gaza who had been buried (by the Israelis) in an inhumane and unethical fashion in numbered graves in the Jordan Valley,” said Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the Palestinian general committee for civil affairs.

“They will all be wrapped in a shroud and the Palestinian flag, they will be identified and have the last rites performed,” he told AFP.

Guy Inbar, a spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli military body which deals with all Palestinian civilian affairs, confirmed that the handover was “under way, but not yet completed.”He said most of the bodies had been transferred to the Palestinian Authority during the morning, with the remaining dozen en route to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Several days ago, the Palestinian Authority had named the 91 “martyrs”which include eight members of a commando unit who were killed in March 1975 in an Israeli assault on the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv where they had barricaded themselves inside with hostages.

Israeli public radio said the bodies included those of militants responsible for a string of suicide bombings in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the southern city of Beersheva.

The move took place despite a legal challenge by Almagor, a group representing Israeli victims of Palestinian attacks, which had moved to stop the handover, the radio said.

The remains were to be transferred to the Muqataa headquarters of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas at 1100 GMT where there would be “an official ceremony and prayers for the dead,” Palestinian prisoners minister Issa Qaraqaa told AFP.