DaysofPal- A 21-year-old Palestinian detainee, Abdul Rahman Sufyan Mohammad al-Sebatein, from the town of Husan west of Bethlehem, died on Thursday under torture and abuse in Israeli prisons.
He was transferred to the Israeli Shaare Zedek Medical Center, according to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Authority, which informed both the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society about his death.
Al-Sebatein had been held without sentencing since his arrest on June 24, 2025. Prisoner organizations said that during his last court appearance on November 25, he showed no signs of serious health complications, despite having suffered an injury a year before his detention that had since stabilized.
The prisoner institutions said al-Sebatein’s death is part of what they described as Israeli slow-kill policy against detainees, an escalation they say has intensified since the beginning of Israeli genocidal war on Gaza and the West Bank.
A Deadliest Period on Record for Palestinian Prisoners
According to recent human rights data, more than 100 detainees have died in Israeli custody since the start of the war, including 85 whose identities have been confirmed. Dozens of detainees from Gaza remain forcibly disappeared, while others were executed in the field and never reached interrogation centers.
This makes the current period the deadliest in the history of the Palestinian prisoner movement, raising the total number of prisoners who have died in custody since 1967 to 322 known cases.
The prisoner institutions noted that al-Sebatein’s death comes at a time when Israeli occupation is pushing forward legislation to legalize the execution of prisoners.
This coincides with alarming reports from human rights groups documenting a spike in deaths in prisons, particularly since far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir took office as National Security Minister and began implementing measures widely condemned as abusive.
The organizations described the conditions in Israeli prisons as “beyond all limits,” citing systematic torture, starvation, denial of medical care, sexual and physical assaults, and the widespread outbreak of infectious diseases, most notably scabies scabies mite infestation, which they say has become an “additional tool of torture” due to deliberate medical neglect.
They warned that the accelerating deaths indicate that the prison system continues to operate under a policy of systematic killing, with barely a month passing without the announcement of a new martyr.
The Israeli occupation continues to withhold the bodies of several deceased detainees, while conducting what were described as “sham investigations” that perpetuate impunity.
The institutions cautioned that the number of deaths inside Israeli prisons is likely to rise, as thousands of detainees, over 9,300 prisoners, including more than 50 women and approximately 350 children, are held in conditions lacking the minimum standards of life.
They reiterated their call for the international community and global human rights bodies to take meaningful action to hold Israeli officials accountable, impose sanctions, and restore the protective role of international institutions for civilians and detainees.
The statement placed full responsibility for the death of Abdul Rahman al-Sebatein on Israeli occupation, urging urgent intervention to prevent further deaths behind prison walls.
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