TULKAREM (Palestine Foundation Information Center) The martyrdom of Palestinian detainee Raed Ismail Asasa, 57, from the town of Ellar near Tulkarem, in Israeli custody was confirmed Friday by the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS).
Asasa died in an Israeli hospital after 27 days in custody, under circumstances that remain unclear.
According to a joint statement by the two prisoner advocacy groups, the Israeli General Authority for Civil Affairs notified them of Asasa’s death but provided no details beyond noting that he had been transferred to an Israeli hospital on June 9.
Asasa had been working in 1948 occupied Palestine when he was detained by Israeli occupation forces (IOF). His arrest was part of what Palestinian rights groups describe as a sweeping crackdown on Palestinian workers since the start of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
“Thousands of workers have been arbitrarily detained and subjected to unprecedented torture,” the statement said.
With Asasa’s martyrdom, the number of Palestinian detainees who have died in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023, has risen to 72, including five whose identities as workers are confirmed.
Rights groups also warn that the IOF continues to withhold the names and details of many Gazan detainees who have died, further obscuring the true extent of the crisis.
“This is the bloodiest chapter in the history of the Palestinian prisoner movement,” the statement emphasized. Since 1967, a total of 309 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody.
The Commission and the PPS described Asasa’s death as “a new crime in the brutal record of the Israeli system,” accusing Israel of systematically targeting detainees with lethal violence.
“These are not isolated incidents. They come as part of the broader machinery of genocide against our people,” the statement read.
The groups held the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for Asasa’s death and the broader targeting of Palestinian prisoners.
“Israel continues its extermination of our people in Gaza, its comprehensive aggression, and its use of systematic tools of oppression,” they charged.
They renewed urgent appeals to the international human rights community, calling for concrete action to hold Israeli leaders accountable for war crimes and to impose sanctions that would end the “exceptional immunity” granted to the occupying state.
“The failure of the international system to act has enabled the genocide and undermined the very foundations of the human rights order.”
