Palestinian prisoner dies in Israeli custody: Rights groups

A Palestinian detainee from the occupied West Bank has died in Israeli custody, two Palestinian rights organizations announced Sunday.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner's Society said in a joint statement that they were notified by the Palestinian Civil Affairs Commission of the death of 49-year-old Nasser Khalil Radaydeh, a father of seven who had been imprisoned since Sept. 18, 2023.

Radaydeh, from the Bethlehem-area town of Al-Ubeidiya, died at Israel's Hadassah Medical Center after being transferred Saturday from Ofer Prison, located west of Ramallah, the statement said.

Israel typically only transfers prisoners to hospitals after their health has significantly deteriorated, often as a result of a systematic medical neglect, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations.

Radaydeh had been detained after being wounded by Israeli army gunfire, the groups said.

They described his death as part of “a series of systematic crimes carried out by the Israeli prison system,” adding that Radaydeh was the second prisoner to die in Israeli custody in the past four days.

According to the two organizations, his death brings the number of Palestinians known to have died in Israeli custody since Oct. 7, 2023, the start of the current genocide on Gaza, to 65. Of those, at least 40 were from Gaza, they said.

The total number of Palestinians who have died in Israeli prisons since 1967 now stands at 302, with the bodies of 74 still withheld by Israel — including 63 who died since Oct. 7 — according to the statement.

As of April, Israel was holding around 9,900 Palestinians in its prisons, including 29 women and around 400 minors, according to the groups.

Tension has been high in the occupied West Bank, where at least 952 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, according to Palestinian figures.

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land illegal and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.