The Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex‑Detainees Affairs said Sunday that Israeli authorities have acknowledged the death of detainee Ehab Mohammad Abdul‑Qader Diab, 36, from the Gaza Strip, who was abducted on December 12, 2023.
The Commission said it received an official response from the Israeli prison administration confirming Diab’s death, claiming he had suffered from “health issues.” His family rejected that claim, stressing he was healthy at the moment Israeli forces abducted him and had no medical conditions.
According to the Commission, available information indicates that Diab died on September 18, 2024.
With Diab’s death, the number of Palestinian detainees who have died in Israeli custody since 1967 rises to 328, including 91 killed after October 7, among them 53 from Gaza.
Many detainees from the Gaza Strip who were abducted after October 7, 2023, remain missing, and their conditions and locations remain unknown.
The Commission called for immediate international intervention to halt Israel’s torture, starvation, and systematic abuse inside its prisons and military camps.
It said dozens of detainees — particularly those abducted from Gaza — were executed in custody, while Israel continues to deny responsibility and maintain a policy of enforced disappearance and inhumane secrecy.
The Commission extended condolences to Diab’s family, saying his killing is part of Israel’s ongoing policy of deliberate executions targeting Palestinian civilians and resistance activists.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) said Israel’s delayed admission of Diab’s death is a grave indicator regarding the fate of dozens of Gaza detainees who are believed to have been killed inside Israeli interrogation camps and prisons and remain forcibly disappeared. Others are still missing after field executions or after being used as human shields before being killed or disappearing.
The PPS said testimonies from released detainees reveal extensive torture, starvation, humiliation, sexual assaults, denial of medical care, and imprisonment in degrading and inhumane conditions.
It stressed that these abuses are not isolated acts but part of a systematic policy involving multiple Israeli agencies, turning the detention system into a central arena of Israel’s ongoing genocide.
Despite nearly three years since the start of the genocide, the continued emergence of testimonies shows that crimes against detainees were not exceptional incidents but part of a deliberate policy targeting Palestinians’ bodies, dignity, and consciousness.
The PPS said Diab’s death — and the deaths of other detainees since the start of the genocide — cannot be separated from the conditions imposed on detainees: torture, starvation, denial of treatment, denial of hygiene, deliberate exposure to disease, continuous violence, and harsh incarceration conditions.
It described these policies as a “slow‑execution” method used by Israel against detainees.
The PPS added that Israel’s abuses target not only individuals but the collective Palestinian consciousness, turning prisons into tools of mass punishment, subjugation, humiliation, and attempts to break Palestinians’ will — consistent with policies aimed at erasing Palestinian existence and rights.
It held Israeli authorities fully responsible for the death of Ehab Diab and for the fate of all Gaza detainees whose conditions and locations Israel continues to conceal.
