Palestinian teenager dies in Israel's notorious Megiddo Prison
A 17-year-old Palestinian has died in Israel's notorious Megiddo Prison, Palestinian prisoner advocacy groups reported on Monday.
The Commission of Prisoners' and Ex-Prisoners' Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners' Club said they had been informed of the death of Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmed in Megiddo Prison by the Israeli Civil Administration.
Ahmed, who was from the West Bank town of Silwad, had been imprisoned since his arrest in September 2024, the groups reported, adding that they had not yet been able to ascertain the circumstances of his death.
The Israeli Prison Service said in a statement that "a 17-year-old security detainee from the West Bank died yesterday [Saturday] in Megiddo Prison", without identifying him, or giving any details about the circumstances of his death.
A "security" detainee is classified as someone who is arrested on anything from stone-throwing to suspicion of being involved in a protest movement. Such arbitrary arrests are commonly used by the Israelis as a pressure tactic to quell dissent.
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Megiddo Prison has long been known for its brutal treatment of Palestinian detainees.
According to Haaretz, prisoners there have been subjected to electric shocks, dog attacks, and severe beatings. Some were stripped naked, bound hand and foot for days, and denied food and blankets, with several hospitalised due to the abuse.
A 2024 report by the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs further detailed the horrors inside Megiddo, documenting systematic torture, medical neglect, sexual violence and routine beatings.
In a statement, the Commission and the Prisoners' Club said that Ahmed is the sixty-third Palestinian detainee to have died in detention since Israel unleashed its war on Gaza in October 2023 - a toll which includes at least 40 people from Gaza.
They added that the period since October 2023 has seen an "unprecedented" rise in the "systematic crimes practised in [Israeli] prisons," making it the "bloodiest in the history of the prisoner movement since 1967".
According to the Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, Ahmed's death brings the total number of Palestinian deaths in Israeli custody since 1967 to 300, although they noted that the figures are likely an underestimate as dozens of detainees captured in Gaza are subject to enforced disappearance.
They added that Israel is holding the bodies of 72 Palestinian detainees, including 61 since the beginning of its war on Gaza.
On 3 March, the Palestinian Prisoners' Affairs Authority and the Palestinian Prisoners' Club reported the death of 62-year-old detainee Ali Ashour Ali al-Batsh in Negev prison.
As of early March, the number of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli custody has topped 9,500, including over 350 children, 21 women and 3,405 administrative detainees, according to the Prisoners' Club.
This is up from an estimated 5,250 detainees before October 2023.
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