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Israel ‘assassinates’ sixth Palestinian prisoner since Operation Al-Aqsa Storm began

Sunday, 19 November 2023 9:59 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 19 November 2023 10:11 AM ]

Deceased Palestinian prisoner Thaer Samih Abu Assab (Photo via social media)

Israel has “assassinated” another Palestinian prisoner, bringing to six the number of the inmates who died in an Israeli detention center since October 7 after Gaza-based resistance groups launched Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, a rights organization said.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs announced in a statement that Thaer Samih Abu Assab, a resident of Qarawat Bani Hassan town northwest of Salfit in the northern West Bank, died late on Saturday in the Negev desert prison.

The 38-year-old Abu Assab was detained on May 27, 2005, and sentenced to 25 years in jail.

Qaddoura Fares, the head of the commission, told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA that the Israel Prison Service (IPS) is “systematically assassinating” Palestinian detainees.

Fares held all Western powers supporting the Israeli occupation and oppression fully responsible for the ongoing crimes against Palestinians, especially the non-stop genocidal war in the besieged Gaza Strip, denouncing their abject failure to stop the regime’s unlawful occupation and ethnic cleansing in the besieged territory.

Last Tuesday, Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Muhammad Mer’ey, 33, died in the Israeli-run Megiddo detention center.

Israel still withholding bodies of 12 Palestinian fighters who died in jail: Rights group

A Palestinian rights advocacy group says Israeli officials are still withholding the bodies of 12 Palestinian resistance fighters who died in the regime’s prisons and detention centers.

On November 6, 32-year-old Palestinian detainee Majed Ahmed Zaqqoul, from the Gaza Strip, in addition to another prisoner from the Gaza Strip whose identity is not yet known, also died in Israeli prisons.

On October 23, Omar Daraghma, 58, from Tubas City in the northeastern West Bank, and 25-year-old Arafat Hamdan from Ramallah died in Israeli prisons.

There are reportedly more than 7,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Hundreds of the inmates have been apparently incarcerated under the practice of administrative detention.

Human rights organizations say Israel violates all the rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention. They say administrative detention violates their right to due process since the evidence is withheld from prisoners while they are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried, or convicted.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express outrage at their detention. Israeli jail authorities keep Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions without proper hygienic standards. Palestinian inmates have also been subject to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.

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