Slain minor detainee, Walid Khaled Ahmad, 17. Photo courtesy of WAFA news agency.
The two organizations revealed, in a joint statement, "the death of Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad (17 years old), a minor detainee from the town of Silwad, east of Ramallah, in Israel's Megiddo prison."
Ahmad was detained on 30 September 2024. The circumstances surrounding his death remain unknown at this time, the statement read.
He is the 63rd Palestinian to die in Israeli jails since the start of the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023. At least 40 of the deceased detainees were from Gaza.
The number of slain detainees and prisoners whose bodies are held by the Israeli authorities has risen to 72, including 61 since the start of the genocide.
At the beginning of this month, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club reported that the number of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons had exceeded 9,500 as of early March 2025.
Moreover, the organization stated that over 350 children are currently held in Israeli prisons, alongside 21 female detainees. Additionally, the number of prisoners from Gaza has reached 1,555.
Systematic brutality
The PPS and the commission held the Israeli occupation fully responsible for Ahmad’s death and called for immediate international intervention to end these violations and hold those responsible accountable.
"Ahmad's death is another crime in Israel’s long-standing record of abuses against Palestinian prisoners," the statement added.
It also highlighted the systematic brutality of Israel’s prison system, which has peaked since the onset of its ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The organizations warned that the death toll among Palestinian detainees will only rise as thousands remain in Israeli prisons under increasingly inhumane conditions.
They detailed a pattern of torture, starvation, physical assaults, medical neglect, sexual abuse, and deliberate imposition of conditions that foster serious and contagious diseases.
Earlier in March, Palestinians described tortures by Israeli forces and settlers — punched in the genitals, held for days while naked, and starved — to independent UN-backed human rights investigators on Tuesday during hearings on the treatment of detainees during the Gaza war.
The UN Human Rights Office issued a report in 2024 indicating that Palestinian detainees kidnapped by Israeli occupation forces since 7 October have faced waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, and other torture and mistreatment.
The report indicates that Israel’s prison service held over 9,400 “security detainees” as of the end of June, and some have been held in secret without access to lawyers or respect for their legal rights.
A summary of the report decries a “staggering” number of detainees — including men, women, children, journalists, and human rights defenders — and said such practices raise concerns about arbitrary detention.
Back then, the US State Department called reports of sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli soldiers “horrific,” saying Israel must investigate “swiftly” and “fully.” This came after a video leaked from Israel’s Sde Teiman, a secret imprisonment camp in the Negev Desert, documenting Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian man.
War crime
Palestinian resistance group Hamas described the death of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails as a "full-fledged war crime," which violates international and humanitarian conventions.
In an official statement, Hamas noted that detainee Walid Khaled Ahmad died in Megiddo prison due to torture and deliberate medical neglect.
"These violations against prisoners will not go unanswered, and our people and resistance remain committed to the cause of our free detainees," Hamas affirmed.
"We call on all humanitarian and human rights organizations to uphold their responsibilities and pressure the occupation to end its crimes against prisoners," the group added.
Short link: