RAMALLAH (Palestine Foundation Information Center) A 17-year-old boy from the West Bank town of Silwad has died in Israel’s Megiddo Prison, according to a joint statement by the Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees’ Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners Society.
According to the joint statement, Israeli officials confirmed Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmed’s death but did not provide details on the circumstances of his death.
The boy was arrested on September 30, 2024, and remained in custody without charge or trial.
The two organizations noted that Ahmed’s death adds to the growing list of Palestinians who have lost their lives due to systematic abuses within Israeli detention facilities.
His death brings the confirmed number of Palestinian prisoners who died in Israeli custody since October 2023 to 63 people, including 40 detainees from the Gaza Strip.
The organizations condemned Ahmed’s death as a new crime in the record of Israeli detention practices, which they described as reaching unprecedented levels of brutality since the Israeli war of genocide started in Gaza in October 2023.
They warned that the rising death toll among detainees is likely to soar as thousands remain in Israeli prisons, and are subjected to systematic abuses, including torture, starvation, medical neglect, sexual violence, and conditions deliberately designed to cause severe illnesses.
The statement held Israeli authorities fully accountable for Ahmed’s death and reiterated calls for the international human rights community to take decisive action and urged the implementation of measures to hold Israeli leaders accountable for war crimes, impose sanctions to isolate Israel internationally, and restore the fundamental role of human rights organizations.
They finally called for an end to the exceptional impunity granted to Israel by the former colonial powers, which has shielded the occupying regime from accountability.
The Hamas Movement mourned the martyr, saying that “the Israeli occupation continues its crimes against our heroic prisoners in its jails.”
The torture and abuse our prisoners are subjected to is a full-fledged war crime, violating all international and humanitarian conventions and embodying the Israeli extremist policy of executing prisoners, the Movement said.
Halas also warned that these ongoing violations against Palestinian prisoners will not go unanswered.
“Our people and our resistance remain committed to our brave prisoners.”
