Palestinian detainee Nasser Khalil Radaydeh, 49, from the town of Al-Ubeidiya near Bethlehem, was pronounced dead on Sunday at Israel’s Hadassah Hospital after being transferred there from Ofer Prison.

His death marks yet another tragic addition to the escalating toll of Palestinian prisoners dying under the Israeli occupation's prison system since the launch of the genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.

According to an urgent joint statement by the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), Radaydeh is the second Palestinian detainee to die in Israeli custody within just four days—evidence, they say, of an intensified and systematic policy of abuse, neglect, and torture being carried out inside Israeli prisons.

Radaydeh, a married father of seven, had been detained since September 18, 2023, after being critically injured by Israeli gunfire during his arrest. Despite the severity of his wounds, he was initially held at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, where his condition was reportedly stabilized. Nevertheless, he was later transferred to Ofer Prison, and then to Hadassah Hospital, where he succumbed to what observers allege was a preventable death caused by deliberate medical negligence and the continued abuse of prisoners.

65 Detainees Dead Since Genocide Began; Most from Gaza

With Radaydeh’s passing, the number of Palestinians who have died in Israeli prisons since the beginning of the current genocide has reached 65, according to documented cases. Alarmingly, 40 of these deceased detainees are from the Gaza Strip. These deaths have unfolded in conditions that rights organizations describe as “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,” marked by the systematic use of starvation, torture, enforced disappearance, and denial of medical treatment.

This period is now being recognized as the deadliest in the history of the Palestinian prisoner movement since the Israeli occupation of 1967. In total, 302 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli prisons since that year. Of these, 74 bodies are still being withheld by the Israeli authorities, including 63 detainees who have died since October 2023, deepening the pain of their families and communities.

Additionally, hundreds of detainees, particularly from Gaza, remain forcibly disappeared—their fates unknown, as the Israeli regime blocks lawyers, human rights groups, and even the International Committee of the Red Cross from accessing them.

Systematic War Crimes

The Commission and PPS place full legal and moral responsibility on the Israeli occupation for Radaydeh’s death and the continued killings of detainees. Their joint statement stressed that conditions in Israeli prisons have become increasingly horrific, describing daily abuses including starvation, prolonged solitary confinement, beatings, medical deprivation, sexual violence, and exposure to diseases due to the denial of basic hygiene and sanitation.

The two organizations reiterated urgent calls for the international community and human rights bodies to break their silence and take decisive action. They called for international sanctions to be imposed on Israel, the isolation of the Israeli regime on the global stage, and the revival of international legal mechanisms to hold Israeli officials accountable for the war crimes being committed.

“The impunity granted to Israel by colonial powers has enabled a regime of extermination and torture,” the statement declared. “This impunity must end. The lives of prisoners, and the dignity of a people under siege, depend on it.”

In the face of this humanitarian catastrophe, the Commission and PPS called on the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and human rights defenders worldwide to act immediately to prevent further deaths and to stop the genocide unfolding in real time within Israeli prisons and across Gaza and the West Bank. (ILKHA)