DaysofPal- Administrative detainee Moataz Mahmoud Abu Zneid, 35, tragically passed away in Israeli custody on January 12, 2025, due to medical negligence.
The Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs, alongside the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, confirmed the news, highlighting the systematic neglect faced by detainees in Israeli prisons.
Abu Zneid, a resident of Dura, had been detained since June 27, 2023. He was married with one child and, according to his family, was in good health before his arrest. However, his condition deteriorated rapidly while in custody.
Abu Zneid was detained at Rimon Prison, where his health abruptly deteriorated, according to a preliminary statement from a recently released inmate. Despite the severity of his condition, the prison administration delayed his transfer to a hospital, committing a deliberate act of medical negligence.
Abu Zneid fell into a coma and was eventually moved to Soroka Hospital on January 6, where he succumbed six days later.
The death of Abu Zneid marks a grim milestone. Since the beginning of the war of extermination, the number of known deaths among Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli custody has risen to 55, the highest in the history of the prisoner movement since 1967. In total, 292 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli custody since 1967, with many more unaccounted for, particularly those subjected to enforced disappearance from Gaza.
Abu Zneid, a former prisoner who had been arrested five times, most often under administrative detention, had previously gone on hunger strikes to protest this extrajudicial form of incarceration. Since the start of the present conflict, he is the fifth administrative detainee to die in this way. The Palestinian Commission and the Prisoner’s Society have described his death as yet another crime in a long history of abuses within the Israeli prison system.
The organizations issued a stark warning about the worsening conditions for the thousands of Palestinians currently held in Israeli prisons. They pointed to systematic crimes, including torture, starvation, physical assaults, medical neglect, sexual violence, and conditions conducive to the spread of serious diseases. These acts, they argue, reflect an intensifying assault on Palestinian detainees, constituting crimes against humanity.
The death of Moataz Mahmoud Abu Zneid has once again brought attention to the pressing need for international intervention to lessen the suffering of Palestinian detainees and hold the occupation accountable for systematic violations of human rights.
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