A 17 -year -old boy from the West Bank who was detained without accusation for six months in an Israeli prison died after collapsing in unclear circumstances, Palestinian officials said.
According to his family, Walid Ahmad was “a healthy high school” at the time of his arrest last September for having allegedly launched stones to Israeli soldiers.
The family thinks that Walid has contracted a friendly dysentery of the bad conditions of the prison, an infection that causes diarrhea, vomiting and dizziness – and can be fatal if it is not treated.
“He was a living teenager who liked to play football before being taken from his home,” his father, Khalid Ahmad, told the Associated Press. Ahmad said he had noticed during the four Walid court appearances – led to a video link – that his son seemed to be in bad health.
“His body was weakened due to malnutrition in prisons in general,” said Ahmad. He said that Walid had told him at some point that he was suffering from scabies, a contagious rash caused by mites. “Don’t worry about me,” recalls his father.
Walid’s lawyer, Firas Al-Jabrini, said the Israeli authorities had denied his client visit to prison. He told AP Three that prisoners detained alongside Walid declared that he was dysentery and that he was widespread among young Palestinians of the establishment.
Thaer Shriteh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority for the Palestinian Authority Commission, told Walid collapsed and struck his head on a metal rod, losing consciousness. “The prison administration did not respond to the requests of urgent care prisoners to save their life,” he said, citing witnesses who spoke to the Commission.
The Israeli penitentiary service said in a statement that an investigation was underway: “A 17-year-old security detainee from Megiddo prison, the West Bank region, died yesterday in prison, his state of health being under privacy,” he said. “An investigation is still underway.”
More than 14,000 Palestinians have been detained by the Israeli army in the West Bank since the attack on Hamas in Israel in October 2023, according to Palestinian figures. Most are held in administrative detention, which allows the preventive arrest of individuals on the basis of unknown evidence.
Israel says detained people are suspected of militancy or assault on soldiers.
Rights defense groups have documented generalized abuses in Israeli detention establishments, but penitentiary authorities deny any systemic abuse and say they investigate the accusations of acts reprehensible by staff. The Israeli ministry supervising prisons acknowledges that the conditions within the detention establishments have been reduced to the minimum level authorized under Israeli law.
Walid is the 63rd Palestinian prisoner in West Bank or Gaza to die in police custody since the start of the war and the first Palestinian teenager to die in Israeli detention, according to the Palestinian authority.
Oneg Ben Dror of NGO doctors based in Jaffa for Human Rights Israel called for an independent investigation into the death of the Palestinians in Israeli prisons and military camps. “We urge the international community to hold Israel responsible for these deaths,” he said.
The Palestinians have long allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly in the 57th anniversary of Israel: estimates suggest that up to 40% of Palestinian men have been arrested at least once.
