Palestinian prisoner Samir Mohammad Yousef Al-Rifai, 53, a father of five from the town of Rummana near Jenin, has died while in Israeli custody, the Palestinian Detainees' Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners' Society (PPS) confirmed on Thursday.

Al-Rifai was arrested by Israeli occupation forces during a raid on his home on July 10 and was being held pending his first hearing at the Salem Military Court, which was scheduled for today. According to his family, he suffered from pre-existing heart conditions and required consistent medical supervision—treatment he was reportedly denied during his detention.

The circumstances surrounding his death have intensified outrage among Palestinian rights groups, who have long warned of the systematic mistreatment and medical neglect of detainees in Israeli prisons. The PPS and the Detainees’ Commission stressed that Al-Rifai’s death marks yet another crime in a widening pattern of brutality against Palestinian prisoners, especially amid the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza.

His passing brings the total number of Palestinian detainees and prisoners confirmed killed in Israeli custody since the start of the genocide in Gaza to 74, a figure that does not include the many whose identities remain unknown due to the widespread use of enforced disappearance by Israeli authorities. Since 1967, at least 311 Palestinian prisoners with confirmed identities have died while in Israeli prisons.

Rights groups warn that the current period is the bloodiest in the history of Palestinian incarceration. Thousands of Palestinians, including minors, elderly, and the sick, remain behind bars in what human rights monitors describe as inhumane conditions. Detainees have reportedly been subjected to torture, starvation, medical negligence, beatings, sexual abuse, and deliberate exposure to diseases such as scabies—acts that rights defenders say amount to war crimes.

The Detainees' Affairs Commission and PPS described Al-Rifai’s death as a direct result of Israel’s deliberate policy of medical neglect, part of a broader strategy to break the spirit of Palestinian resistance and systematically dehumanize the imprisoned population.

In a joint statement, both organizations held the Israeli occupation fully responsible for Al-Rifai’s death and renewed urgent appeals to the international community. They called for global human rights institutions to take decisive action against Israeli leaders responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and to impose meaningful sanctions that would end Israel’s impunity.

They further urged a revival of the international human rights framework, which they say has been paralyzed in the face of Israel’s ongoing war of extermination in Gaza and the West Bank. The statement demanded the end of international silence, and called for a halt to what they described as the "exceptional immunity" afforded to Israel—placing it above justice, accountability, and international law.

As the death toll among Palestinian detainees rises, families and communities across occupied Palestine are left grieving loved ones whose only “crime” was resisting occupation—and whose suffering, even in death, continues to highlight the deep injustices of the ongoing Israeli oppression. (ILKHA)