The Commission stated that it had informed the Commission of Prisoners' Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners' Club of the news, explaining that the occupation forces had arrested Abdullah on February 1st. A few days after his arrest, his health deteriorated, and it was later revealed that he was suffering from cancer.
She stated that the Israeli Prison Service transferred him between several detention centers, from Megiddo Prison to Gilboa Prison, and then to the Ramle Prison Clinic. Despite tests confirming he had advanced cancer, the Israeli authorities refused to release him, keeping him in detention until he died just one day after being transferred to Assaf Harofeh Hospital.
The Commission noted that the martyr Abdullah was a former prisoner who had been arrested in 2002 during the Al-Aqsa Intifada and spent two years in Israeli prisons. It noted that he had been suffering from health problems prior to his recent arrest and was receiving treatment, but his arrest prevented him from completing his treatment.
Both the Prisoners' Affairs Authority and the Prisoners' Club affirmed that Abdullah's martyrdom represents a new crime in a series of Israeli violations against prisoners, part of what they described as the "slow killing" policy pursued by the prison administration.
The two organizations explained that the testimonies of hundreds of released prisoners document torture, medical neglect, and systematic violations inside prisons, which constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
According to official data from the prisoners' institutions, the number of martyrs from the prisoner movement has risen to 79 since the beginning of the current war, all of whom have been identified, while dozens of detainees remain missing due to enforced disappearance. The number of martyrs from the prisoner movement since 1967 has reached approximately 316, while the occupation is holding the bodies of 87 prisoners, including 76 bodies from the last war.
The two organizations noted that this period is witnessing the highest rate of prisoner deaths in decades, with not a month passing without a new death being recorded inside prisons, due to harsh detention conditions that include torture, starvation, medical neglect, and denial of treatment.
The two organizations also condemned the field executions of detainees after their capture, stressing that the bodies returned after the ceasefire provide clear evidence of the extent of the gross violations committed against the prisoners.
The Palestinian Prisoners' Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners' Club held the occupation authorities fully responsible for the death of detainee Mahmoud Abdullah. They called on international human rights organizations to take urgent action to hold the occupation's leaders accountable for their crimes against prisoners and the Palestinian people, and to impose clear international sanctions to end the occupation's policy of impunity.
