RAMALLAH, March 3, 2025 (WAFA) – Forty-one-year-old Palestinian detainee, Khaled Mahmoud Qasim Abdullah, from Jenin refugee camp, has died in Israel’s Megiddo Prison.
The Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) reported that Abdullah, an administrative detainee, died on February 23, 2025 in Megiddo Prison, adding to the growing list of Palestinians who have died as a result of the systematic crimes committed by the Israeli prison system, which has escalated since the beginning of the genocide.
Abdullah had been held under administrative detention since November 9, 2023.
According to the Commission and PPS, Abdullah was married and a father of four children. He also has two brothers who are being held under administrative detention. According to his family, he had no prior health problems before his detention.
They noted that Abdullah is the third detainee to die in the past week, bringing the total number of Palestinian detainees who have died in Israeli prisons since the start of the genocide in 2023 to 61, whose identities are known. At least 40 of these detainees are from Gaza, marking the highest number recorded.
This period has been the deadliest in the history of the Palestinian prisoner movement since 1967. As a result, the total number of Palestinian detainees who have died in Israeli prisons since 1967 has risen to 298. It should be noted that many detainees from Gaza remain subject to the crime of enforced disappearance, while 70 Palestinian detainees' bodies are still being held, including 59 since the beginning of the aggression in 2023.
The Commission and PPS stressed that Abdullah's death is another crime in the record of Israel's brutal prison system, which has reached new extremes since the onset of the genocide.
They further pointed out that the Israeli occupation does not just kill detainees but deliberately conceals their fate for a period after their death, as was the case with many Gaza detainees, including Khaled Abdullah.
The Commission and PPS affirmed that the ongoing mistreatment of detainees is part of the larger genocide strategy, which aims to execute and eliminate more Palestinians through systematic means.
They also emphasized that the rising number of deaths among detainees will continue to grow as more Palestinians remain in Israeli prisons, where they face daily abuse, including torture, starvation, medical neglect, sexual violence and conditions that lead to severe and contagious diseases. In addition, there is an unprecedented level of deprivation and dispossession.
The Commission and PPS held the Israeli occupation fully responsible for the death of Abdullah. They reiterated their calls for the international human rights community to take decisive action to hold Israeli officials accountable for the ongoing war crimes they are committing against the Palestinian people.
They called for imposing sanctions to isolate Israel internationally and restore the role of the international human rights system, which has been severely weakened during the genocide. They also urged an end to the exceptional immunity Israel has been granted by colonial powers, which have allowed it to evade accountability and punishment.
T.R.
