Ramallah: A 65-year-old Palestinian prisoner from Gaza has died in a prison in central Israel, according to a joint statement released by the Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Club.
According to the statement, Nasr Ziyada, a father of seven children, passed away at Ramla Prison on August 16, Xinhua news agency reported.
Ziyada was arrested on December 29, 2023, along with his son Jihad, who is currently being held at Negev Prison in southern Israel.
The statement said Ziyada and his son experienced prolonged “maltreatment” during field interrogations at their home in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City before their arrest.
Ziyada’s death raises the number of prisoners who have died in Israeli prisons since October 7, 2023, to 24, the statement added.
The statement placed full responsibility for Ziyada’s death on Israeli authorities and called on the international human rights community to hold Israel accountable for its “crimes” against Palestinian detainees.
The Israeli authorities have yet to respond to Ziyada’s death.
Prisoners in Ramla Prison confirmed that Ziyara had been transferred to the detention facility just a week before his death, adding that he was suffering from burns in the lower part of his body and was unable to walk.
According to the prisoner’s family, Ziyara suffered from diabetes and heart problems that were exacerbated because of Israeli medical negligence and difficult detention conditions. He was not suffering from any burns to his body at the time of his arrest.
Israel keeps Palestinian inmates under deplorable conditions without proper hygienic standards. Palestinian inmates have also been subject to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express outrage at their illegal detention.
Human rights organisations said Israel continues to violate all rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention and international laws.
According to the Palestine Detainees Studies Centre, around 60 per cent of the Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails suffer from chronic diseases, several of whom died in detention or after being released due to the severity of their cases.
–IANS
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