WEST BANK (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Imprisoned Palestinian novelist and activist Walid Daqqa, who was suffering from cancer, has died in Israel’s Shamir Medical Center, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs on Sunday.
Daqqa was from Baqa al-Gharbiyye, a predominantly Palestinian city within the Green Line, and had served for 38 years in Israeli prisons, the commission added, before saying that he had died as a result of a “slow killing” policy carried out against ill prisoners by the Israeli prison administration.
Daqqa is one of the most prominent and longtime Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. He was arrested by Israel in 1986 for killing an Israeli soldier and has remained in prison since then. While in jail, he wrote several books, including a children’s story.
In 1999, he also got married while behind bars. Along with his wife, Sana Salameh, he welcomed a daughter – Milad – in 2020, conceived after his sperm was smuggled out of prison.
In 2022, Daqqa was diagnosed with myelofibrosis – a rare form of bone marrow cancer that disrupts the body’s normal production of blood cells. Rights groups began pressuring Israel to release him on medical grounds.
Last year, Addameer, a rights group that supports Palestinian prisoners, said that Daqqa was in “dire need of urgent medical attention”, accused Israeli authorities of denying him the treatment he was prescribed, and called for his “immediate release”.
But Israel refused to free him from prison early, setting his release date for 2025.
Hamas Movement said that it was renewing its “covenant with the prisoners until they gain freedom”, following the news of his martyrdom.
In a statement, Hamas mourned Daqqa and noted that “he died of deliberate medical negligence in the occupation prisons”.
