22-year-old Palestinian detainee Ahmad Hatem Mohammad Khdeirat has died in an Israeli hospital as a result of deliberate medical negligence, exposing yet again the brutal conditions and systematic abuse faced by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

The Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Committee and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society announced on Tuesday that Khdeirat, a resident of Adh-Dhahiriya town in the Hebron governorate, was arrested by Israeli forces on May 23, 2024, and had been held ever since under harsh detention conditions. Palestinian organizations confirmed that the young detainee suffered from deteriorating health that was wilfully ignored by prison authorities, leading to his death in custody.

The General Authority of Civil Affairs informed the concerned Palestinian institutions of his death, which has sparked widespread outrage and renewed calls for international intervention to halt Israel’s crimes against prisoners.

With Khdeirat’s death, the number of Palestinians who have died in Israeli prisons since the beginning of the Gaza genocide on October 7, 2023, has risen to 78. Human rights groups have repeatedly condemned Israel for subjecting detainees to torture, starvation, humiliation, and denial of medical care — policies they describe as part of a deliberate campaign to break the will of the Palestinian people.

According to Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, there are currently 11,100 Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 400 children and 53 women.

Among them, 3,544 Palestinians are being held under “administrative detention” — a practice widely denounced as illegal and inhumane. This policy allows Israel to detain Palestinians without charge or trial for indefinite periods, based on secret evidence withheld even from defense lawyers.

Palestinian advocacy organizations stressed that Khdeirat’s death was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of medical neglect used as a tool of punishment by Israeli authorities. Prisoners are frequently denied essential treatment, kept in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, and subjected to severe psychological and physical abuse.

“The occupation systematically turns prisons into death chambers,” the Prisoners’ Society said in a statement. “Ahmad Khdeirat was not the first, and tragically, he will not be the last, unless the international community intervenes to stop Israel’s deliberate killing of Palestinian detainees through neglect and torture.”

Human rights defenders across Palestine have called for urgent investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court into Israel’s treatment of prisoners, arguing that such practices amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Committee urged human rights organizations, the Red Cross, and global civil society to pressure Israel to end administrative detention, ensure access to medical care, and release all political prisoners, especially the sick, elderly, and minors.

They also demanded that Israel return the bodies of martyred detainees — including Khdeirat — so their families may give them a proper burial. Israel currently withholds the bodies of dozens of deceased prisoners, a policy condemned as collective punishment and a violation of international humanitarian law.

“Ahmad Khdeirat’s martyrdom is a testament to the cruelty of the occupation and the silence of the so-called international community,” the Committee’s statement concluded. “Every moment that passes without accountability emboldens the jailers and deepens the suffering of our people.” (ILKHA)