Seventh Palestinian detainee dies in Israeli prison since October 7th

A seventh Palestinian detainee has died in an Israeli prison since the October 7th Hamas-led attack on Israel. Abdel Rahman al-Bahsh (23), a Fatah member from Nablus, died on New Year’s Day while incarcerated in the British colonial-era Megiddo security prison.

In an interview with al-Quds New Network, Mr Bahsh’s father blamed Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir for what he claimed was harsh treatment being suffered by Palestinian prisoners. “Torture, beatings and aggression against the prisoners, and being stripped naked in the cold, and the humiliation, they are not allowed to sleep. They are not allowed decent food,” he said.

The Israel Prison Service said Mr Bahsh was sentenced for “opening fire, communicating with a hostile organisation, committing illegal crimes, and throwing a flammable object”. It said his death “will be examined”.

In a joint statement the Palestinian Authority’s commission for detainees affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Club, an NGO that supports Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, accused Israel of “assassinating Bahsh” and other prisoners and detainees as well as committing “systematic crimes of torture and abuse”. Mr Bahsh had been detained since May 31st, 2022, and was sentenced to 35 months.

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In a report on its website on the number of Palestinians detained by Israel, the Israel-based human rights organisation HaMoked said: “As of January 2024 Israel holds 2,114 sentenced prisoners, 2,534 remand detainees and 3,291 administrative detainees held without trial. Israel also holds 661 people as ‘unlawful combatants’.”

That suggests the number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention has risen by more than 3,000 since the Israel Prison Service reported at the end of September last year that it was holding 4,764.

In a statement on its website in November Human Rights Watch said: “The large number of Palestinian detainees is primarily the result of separate criminal justice systems Israeli authorities maintain in the occupied territory. The nearly three million Palestinians who live in the occupied West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, are ruled by military law and prosecuted in military courts. By contrast, the nearly half a million Israeli settlers in the West Bank are governed under civil and criminal law.”

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