A Palestinian detainee from the city of Rahat in the Negev, Hassan Issa al‑Qasha’la, 26, died on Thursday evening inside Israel’s Be’er Sheva prison, which is operated by the Israeli military. Al‑Qasha’la had been held for more than 13 months, and his release was scheduled in six months.
His death comes amid a sharp rise in reported fatalities among Palestinian detainees, particularly since October 7, 2023.
Rights groups say the number of deaths in custody has accelerated in recent months, reflecting what they describe as unprecedented levels of abuse and deteriorating detention conditions.
According to prisoner support organizations, thousands of detainees are being held in conditions that lack the minimum requirements for survival, with daily exposure to systematic violations, especially detainees from Gaza who have faced the harshest treatment.
Documented abuses include torture, starvation, physical and psychological assault, medical neglect, sexual violence, and the deliberate imposition of conditions that spread serious and contagious diseases, most notably scabies.
Rights groups also report sweeping policies of confiscation, deprivation, and punitive restrictions.
Since the start of the genocide in Gaza, the number of Palestinian detainees who have died in Israeli custody has surpassed one hundred, whether inside prisons or after being transferred to Israeli hospitals.
The identities of eighty-six of them have been publicly confirmed, including thirty-two who died last year. Dozens of detainees from Gaza remain forcibly disappeared, while Israel continues to withhold the bodies of ninety-four detainees, eighty-three of whom died after the start of the war.
Prisoner organizations and human rights groups say that more than one hundred deaths in custody within just over two years represent an unprecedented escalation in the history of Israeli detention practices.
