RAMALLAH: The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) today transferred the body of a Palestinian who died in Israeli custody to a forensic institute, according to the attorney representing Commission for Prisoners’ Affairs, Karim Ajweh.

Ajweh confirmed that the IPS transferred the body of Mustafa Mohammad Abu Arrah, 63, who passed away last night due to a severe deterioration in his health, to Israel’s Abu Kabir Forensic Institute.

The Commission and the Palestine Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said in a press statement that the bodies of Palestinian prisoners who died in Israeli detention and whose identities are known and bodies are still withheld by the occupation authorities jumped to 28, including 17 prisoners who died in Israeli detention since the onset of the Israeli genocidal offensive on the Gaza Strip on October 7.

They added that there are dozens of Palestinians who have died in Israeli custody after being detained by the Israeli occupation forces from the Strip and who remain anonymous.

Abu Arrah’s death bri
ngs the total number of Palestinian prisoners who died in custody and whose identities are known since October 7 to 19.

Israel’s widely condemned practice of administrative detention allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.

The US State Department has said in past reports on human rights conditions for Palestinians that administrative detainees are not given the ‘opportunity to refute allegations or address the evidentiary material presented against them in court.’

Amnesty International has described Israel’s use of administrative detention as a ‘bankrupt tactic’ and has long called on Israel to bring its use to an end.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy, which violates international law.

Source: Palestine
news & Information Agency – WAFA