The General Authority for Civil Affairs has informed the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners Society early this Thursday about the death of detainee Ali Ashour Ali Al-Batsh, 62, from Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, in “Negev” Israeli detention camp.
According to a joint statement from the Commission and the Society, Al-Batsh died on February 21, 2025, at Soroka Hospital, after being transferred there from “Negev” desert prison a few days prior. Al-Batsh was abducted on December 25, 2023, and was married with six children.
This incident adds to the growing list of deaths resulting from the systematic abuses by the prison system, which have reached unprecedented levels since the genocide, making the war on detainees another form of extermination.
The statement emphasized that the occupation forces not only cause the deaths of detainees but also manipulate information regarding their fate. This has occurred multiple times, with all responses coming from the occupation army.
The occupation authorities continue to hold the bodies of the deceased, often claiming ongoing investigations to evade international accountability. The delays in revealing the fate of detainees mean that families are often informed of their deaths days or months later.
Al-Batsh is the fourth detainee to die within a short period, raising the total number of deaths among prisoners and detainees in occupation prisons to 62 since the genocide began on October 7, 2023, with at least 40 from Gaza. This period is the bloodiest in the history of the prisoners’ movement since 1967.
The total number of known deceased prisoners since 1967 has now risen to 299, with dozens of detainees from Gaza still forcibly disappeared.
The number of deceased detainees whose bodies are still held by Israel has reached 71, with 60 of these deaths occurring since the war began.
The Commission and the Society stated that Al-Batsh’s death represents another crime in the record of the Israeli system’s brutality, which has peaked since the genocide’s onset.
They warned that the increasing number of deaths among prisoners and detainees will become more dangerous as time passes, with thousands of prisoners and detainees held in occupation prisons continuously subjected to systematic crimes.
These include torture, starvation, various forms of assaults, medical crimes, sexual assaults, and deliberate imposition of conditions leading to serious and contagious diseases, in addition to unprecedented levels of deprivation and looting policies.
The commission and the society held the Israeli occupation fully responsible for Al-Batsh’s death and renewed their call for the international human rights system to take effective measures to hold the occupation leaders accountable for the war crimes they continue to commit against the Palestinian people.
They urged for sanctions on the occupation to place it in clear international isolation, restore the fundamental role of the human rights system, end the terrifying state of impotence during the genocide, and end the exceptional immunity granted by colonial powers to the occupation state, considering it above accountability and punishment.
