The Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, has warned of Israel’s ongoing crimes and violations against Palestinian prisoners, the latest of which led to the death of 34-year-old Rafat Adnan Abu Fannanah, from Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
In a statement issued yesterday, Hamas said “the martyrdom of prisoner Abu Fannanah, who has been detained since 7 October [2023], and the torture and abuse he was subjected to during his detention, despite his injury and difficult health condition, proves the Israeli brutality against our prisoners.”
The movement pointed out that with Abu Fannanah’s death, the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli jails since the genocidal war was launched stands at 60, saying that “it is a dangerous and unprecedented number.”
Hamas renewed its calls on all free people of the world and human rights and legal bodies to pressure the Israeli occupation and hold it accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people and to stand by Palestinian prisoners.
Abu Fannanah, 34, was detained by the Israeli occupation army on 7 October 2023 and died in custody, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement yesterday.
The father of one was injured during his arrest and was held at Ayalon Prison before being transferred to the Shamir Medical Centre southeast of Tel Aviv, where he was pronounced dead, the statement said.
Palestinian authorities estimate that at least 297 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli prisons since Tel Aviv’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.
At least 10,000 Palestinians remain in Israeli prisons. The figure does not include those arrested from the Gaza Strip whose numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.
A ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement took effect in Gaza on 19 January, halting Israel’s brutal war that has killed at least 48,350 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and left the enclave in ruins.
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