Elderly Palestinian prisoner dies in Israeli custody

RAMALLAH, Palestine / ISTANBUL

An elderly Palestinian detainee died Sunday in Israeli detention, prisoners’ affairs groups said.

Mohammad Ghawadra, 63, from Jenin in the northern West Bank, lost his life in Israeli custody, the Commission of Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a joint statement.

According to the statement, Ghawadra was arrested on Aug. 6, 2024, and has since been held in Ganot Prison in southern Israel.

The statement did not specify the direct cause or location of his death, but said it occurred “amid ongoing incitement led by the fascist Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who seeks to pass a law allowing the execution of prisoners and boasts of crimes committed against them.”

Ghawadra was the father of administrative detainee Sami Ghawadra and of former prisoner Shadi Ghawadra, who was released and deported to Egypt earlier this year under a Gaza ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel.

With Ghawadra’s death, the number of prisoners who have died in Israeli custody since October 2023 has risen to 81.

The two advocacy groups added that Israel currently withholds the bodies of 89 prisoners, including 78 who died after the Gaza war began.

They warned that the number of deaths is likely to rise, given that thousands of detainees are being held in inhumane conditions, subjected to systematic violations such as torture, starvation, physical and sexual assaults, and medical neglect.

According to earlier data from the two groups, Israel arrested more than 20,000 Palestinians since October 2023, while over 9,100 remain detained, in addition to hundreds held in military camps.

During the same period, attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank have killed 1,063 Palestinians and injured nearly 10,000 others.