The Palestinian Prisoner’ Society (PPS) and the Palestinian Detainees’ Committee have confirmed, Monday, the death of a Palestinian detainee from the Gaza Strip due to torture and medical neglect at the infamous Sde Teiman Israel prison and interrogation facility.
They stated that the detainee, Omar Abdul-Aziz Fadel Jneid, 26, from Jabalia in northern Gaza, died on June 17, 2024, due to torture, abuse, and medical neglect.
The announcement came just a few days after the “Israeli Center for the Defence of the Individual” (Hamoked) officially informed the family that it received a response to its inquiry with the prison authority confirming that Omar died on June 17, but the occupation authorities did not provide further details.
The PPS and the Detainees’ committee stated that Israeli soldiers abducted Omar on December 24, 2023, along with his brother, Yasser, who was released four months later, and added that the detainee had no prior medical conditions, and worked as a farmer and was preparing to get married.
They also said that Omar is one of dozens of Gaza Strip detainees who died or were killed in Israel prisons and interrogation facilities, especially the infamous Sde Teiman prison where dozens of cases of severe torture and abuse have been documented, in addition to the hundreds of slain Palestinians that the Israeli army admitted to holding their corpses.
They added that Israel has seriously escalated its crimes against the detainees and that these serious violations are part of Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people.
Jneid’s death brings the number of detainees who died in Israeli prisons since 1967, and their deaths have been officially documented to 258, including 21 who have been officially identified.
This number does not include the dozens of detainees who died or were killed and Israel is still refusing to release any information regarding them and the total number of Palestinians the army abducted in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Last week, the death of another detainee, Islam Hasan Sarsawi, from Gaza, was officially declared, although he died due to torture in an Israeli prison back in April.
On Monday morning, August 5, 2023, the wounded, Wafaa Nayef Jarrar, 50, succumbed to her critical injuries, in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
Jarrar sustained critical injuries during her abduction by Israeli forces on May 21, 2024, during a military incursion into the city of Jenin and its refugee camp.
Furthermore, the PPS and the Detainees’ Committee stated that Israel is still practicing the illegal policy of forceful disappearance of Palestinian detainees, especially since their numbers, fate and places of imprisonment remain unknown, while the Israeli Prison Authority recently admitted is holding captive 1584 Palestinians who were classified as “illegal combatants,” and that this number does not include the total number of detainees abducted in the Gaza Strip, especially those held in prison camps directly run by the Israeli army.
It is worth mentioning that only a few lawyers’ visits have been authorized to Gaza Strip detainees, and some aspects of the ongoing and horrific abuses against them, including severe torture, rape, hunger, humiliation, and other crimes were reported.
|Sde Teman was called “Israel’s Guantanamo” back in December by human rights groups, and the conditions have only deteriorated since then. Common Dreams|
Various inquiries and investigations by international journalists have revealed that the Sde Teiman interrogation and detention facility has witnessed the majority of cases of serious crimes and violations, followed by various prisons, especially the Negev desert detention camp.
|Israeli detention center faces legal challenge after ‘unimaginable abuses’ – The Washington Post|
The Prisoners Society and the Detainees’ Committee renewed their calls for an immediate international investigation into the crimes against the detainees as these deadly violations are part of the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and added that the international community remains unable or unwilling to stop these crimes and hold the perpetrators accountable in international courts, especially the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
|Amnesty: Israel must end mass incommunicado detention and torture of Palestinians from Gaza|
Omar’s death brings the officially declared number of detainees who were tortured to death, killed in detention, and died from medical neglect, and were officially identified, to 21, while dozens of slain and deceased detainees remain unknown.
It is worth mentioning that the number of Palestinians who are currently imprisoned by Israel and their names are known is more than 9900, in addition to the thousands of detainees from the Gaza Strip who remain unidentified and Israel continues to refuse to reveal any information regarding their fates and the names of the detention camps where they are held.
