5 Palestinians from Gaza die shortly after abduction by Israeli military

The Palestinian Prisoners Club on Monday confirmed the deaths of five Palestinians taken from Gaza and held in Israeli prisons.

The prisoners were identified as Ashraf Abu Warda, Mohammed al-Akka, Samir al-Kahlout, Zuhair al-Sharif and Mohammed Labad.

These deaths follow warnings from two Palestinian monitoring groups about “catastrophic conditions” in Israeli jails after the deaths of two other prisoners.

In a joint statement, the Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society announced on Friday the deaths of Samih Aliwi, 61, and Anwar Aslim, 44.

Aliwi, a Hamas leader from Nablus, reportedly died on 6 November, six days after he was transferred from Ramla (Ayalon) Prison clinic to Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh).

According to the statement from the monitors, one of which is a Palestinian Authority (PA) agency, the Israeli prison administration did not disclose details of his death despite being obligated to release such information.

Aliwi had been held under administrative detention since 21 October of last year despite his pre-existing health issues. Testimony received by his lawyer indicated that Aliwi was suffering from multiple health issues prior to his arrest and had been surgically operated on several times for a benign intestinal tumour.

In early August, the Israeli rights group B’Tselem accused Israeli authorities of systematically abusing Palestinians in torture camps, subjecting them to severe violence and sexual assault.

Torture was recorded in civilian and military detention facilities across Israel, resulting in the deaths of at least 60 Palestinians in Israeli custody in less than 10 months.

The systematic nature of the abuse across all facilities left “no room to doubt an organised, declared policy of the Israeli prison authorities”.

The report, titled “Welcome to Hell”, is based on 55 testimonies from former detainees from the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and citizens of Israel. The overwhelming majority of these detainees were held without trial.

The Palestinian Prisoners Society reported that over 11,400 arrests have been made since the start of the war, excluding those detained in Gaza, where the numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.

More than 9,392 administrative detention orders have been issued during this period, ranging from new orders to renewals, including those targeting children and women.

The society’s latest report detailed “detention campaigns carried out since 7 October”, which involved “humiliation, brutal beatings, threats against detainees and their families”, as well as the destruction of detainees’ houses and the looting of their property.