Ramallah, West Bank – Palestinian detainee, Motaz Mahmoud Abu Zneid, 35, has been martyred while in the Israeli occupation’s custody, the PA’s Civil Affairs authority has announced
Abu Zneid, from the city of Dura in Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank, succumbed on Sunday night at the Israeli Soroka Hospital in the 1948-occupied territories after violations of his right to medical care and medical negligence
Occupation authorities transferred him from Rimon prison where he was being held, to Soroka hospital on January 6, only after he entered into a coma and was unconscious. He lost his life six days later, on January 12, 2025
Abu Zneid has been detained since June 2023. He is married and has one child. According to his family, he did not have any health problems before his arrest
Recently released detainees who were held at Rimon prison with him told the PPS that Abu Zneid was suffering from a serious and sudden deterioration to his health, but prison authorities deliberately delayed transferring him to hospital
The lack of details surrounding his case is due to the refusal of occupation authorities to provide information about Palestinian detainees in their custody
The PPS, the Commission of Detainees Affairs, and all other relevant institutions hold the occupation fully responsible for the martyrdom of Abu Zneid and the dozens of other Palestinians who have been killed in custody
Abu Zneid is a former prisoner who was detained five times, the majority of them under administrative detention, during which he went on hunger strikes in protest of being held without trial or charge. He is the fifth detainee held under administrative detention to be martyred since the genocide
The number of identified and martyred Palestinian detainees since the start of the genocide in Gaza has risen to 55. Dozens of other unidentified detainees arrested from Gaza have been martyred and subject to enforced disappearance. This number is the highest on record. Since the occupation of 1967, there have been least 292 identified martyred Palestinian detainees
The Commission and the PPS urge immediate intervention to save the lives of thousands of Palestinian detainees held by the occupation, and who are being subject to an unprecedented rate of murder, torture and abuse
The international human rights system must take real steps to hold the occupation accountable for the war crimes they continue to commit against our people, and to impose sanctions with the intent of isolating it. The state of exceptional immunity granted to the occupying state of Israel by the world’s colonial powers has allowed it to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity for decades with zero accountability
