Remains of ‘Jerusalem defenders’ buried at home after half a century

AMMAN — Deputising for His Majesty King Abdullah, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Freihat on Wednesday attended a military ceremony that took place at the Martyr’s memorial in Amman to bury the remains of fallen soldiers who fell in the battle for Jerusalem in 1967. 

The soldiers’ bodies rested in Jerusalem for decades. Some Jordanian soldiers were buried anonymously as they were defending the holy city during the Arab-Israeli war, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.  

A ceremony was held at dawn Wednesday to transfer the fallen soldiers’ remains from Sur Baher in Jerusalem to the memorial site in Amman. 

A group of honour guards and a representative of the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army Iftaa Department accompanied the remains back home. Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs announced last month  it had found the remains of three Jordanian soldiers in the site of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. 

The ministry was quoted as saying that the Israeli side “respects Jordan and the soldiers who died in the line of duty”, noting that contacts had been made to move the remains of the three fallen men to bury them in the Kingdom.

In December 2016, King Abdullah attended a similar ceremony that took place at the Martyr’s Memorial to bury the remains of a fallen soldier who died in Jerusalem battles.