DayofPal— Palestinian Prisoners’ Club reports that Palestinian detainee Mahmoud Talal Abdullah, 49, from Jenin Refugee Camp, has died in Israel’s Assaf Harofeh Medical Center following a rapid deterioration of his health.
Abdullah was arrested by Israeli forces on February 1, 2025. Shortly after his arrest, his health declined drastically. Medical examinations later revealed he had advanced-stage cancer.
Despite the diagnosis and his worsening condition, the Israeli prison authorities refused to release him, continuing to transfer him between Megiddo Prison, Gilboa Prison, and Ramla Prison Clinic. He was finally moved to Assaf Harofeh hospital, where he died just one day after the transfer.
Mahmoud Abdullah was a former political prisoner, previously detained during the Second Intifada in 2002, during which he spent two years in Israeli prisons.
Before his most recent detention, he had been undergoing medical treatment for pre-existing health issues, treatment that was disrupted by his arrest, ultimately costing him his life.
Both the Commission of Detainees and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club condemned his death, calling it a deliberate crime and a continuation of a systematic policy of genocide targeting Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
They said this case is one in a long series of violations that include torture, medical neglect, and inhumane treatment, actions that constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes under international law.
With Abdullah’s death, the number of Palestinian detainees who have died since the start of the genocidal war has risen to 79, according to organizations that track and document such cases.
These figures only include people whose identities have been confirmed. Dozens more remain forcibly disappeared, with no information on their whereabouts or wellbeing.
Since 1967, the total number of documented deaths among Palestinian prisoners stands at 316, with 87 of their bodies withheld by Israeli authorities, 76 of them since the latest war began.
The statement also pointed to the unprecedentedly high rate of deaths in Israeli custody, describing it as evidence of a policy of slow, systematic killing.
Prisoners are held in conditions severely lacking in basic humanitarian standards, subjected to continuous abuse, including torture, starvation, beatings, sexual violence, denial of medical care, and exposure to contagious diseases, particularly scabies.
The two institutions also highlighted evidence of field executions against detainees, pointing to the state of recently returned bodies of prisoners, which they say prove the scale and brutality of the abuse.
They placed full responsibility for Abdullah’s death on the Israeli government and renewed their call on the international human rights community to take immediate and tangible action.
They demanded the prosecution of Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the imposition of clear international sanctions, and an end to extraordinary immunity granted to Israel by powerful global actors.
Shortlink for this post: https://daysofpalestine.ps/?p=68599
