The Palestinian Civil Affairs Authority, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society have announced the death of Ahmad Sa’id Saleh Tazaz’a, a 20-year-old administrative detainee from Jenin, who passed away in Megiddo Prison after being held there since May 6, 2025, without charges or trial.
No detailed information has been released regarding the circumstances surrounding his death, as Israel refuses to release any information besides the fact that he is dead.
In a joint statement, three organizations emphasized that Megiddo Prison, located in the northern region of the occupied Palestine, has long been associated with grave human rights violations.
It remains a site where severe abuse is reported, severe torture, extremely bad living conditions, including the spread of scabies, which, according to the organizations, has been weaponized by the prison administration as a method of slow extermination.
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The statement further noted that with the death of Tazaz’a, the number of known Palestinian detainees who have died in Israeli custody, and their deaths have been officially document, since the onset of the genocide on October 7, 2023, has risen to 76.
“This phase in our people’s history, and in the struggle of the prisoners’ movement, is the bloodiest yet,” the statement reads, citing a total of 313 Palestinian prisoners who died in Israeli prisons and their identities have been documented since 1967.
The organizations underscored that the rising death toll among prisoners reflects a continuing policy of deliberate neglect and slow killing perpetrated by the Israeli prison system.
“Month after month, new names are added to the list of those who have died in prisons, detention camps and interrogation facilities, many of whom were held in deplorable conditions devoid of basic human necessities,” the statement adds.
Detainees are systematically exposed to widespread abuses including torture, starvation, medical neglect, physical and sexual violence, and conditions that foster the spread of infectious diseases such as scabies.
They described the death of Tazaz’a as yet another crime added to the record of the Israeli regime, which they accused of pursuing calculated policies designed to eliminate prisoners through various forms of abuse and neglect.
“While global actors call for the release of the Israeli captives in Gaza, they turn a blind eye to the ongoing slaughter of our detainees and to the indescribable torture being inflicted daily,” the statement said.
The institutions held Israeli authorities fully accountable for Tazaz’a’s death and reiterated urgent calls for international human rights bodies to take decisive action.
They demanded accountability for war crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people and called for comprehensive sanctions that would isolate the occupying power on the global stage and revive the foundational principles of the international human rights system.
The three institutions concluded by urging the world to end its alarming silence and inaction, particularly in light of the unfolding genocide, and to “dismantle the shield of exceptional immunity that continues to protect the occupying state from legal and moral accountability.”
