Statement by Palestinian Prisoners’ Institutions on Case of Martyred Palestinian Prisoner

🔴 Martyrdom of 28y/o Palestinian Prisoner In Israeli Jails A Crime That Demands Accountability. The Continued Withholding of Information About Circumstances Of His Martyrdom Is An Extension of The Policy Of Impunity.

October 21, 2026

Ramallah, occupied Palestine — Israeli occupation authorities have continued to withhold important information about the manner in which a 28-year-old Palestinian prisoner, Ahmad Humaidat, from Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank, was martyred behind bars, Palestinian prisoners’ institutions said in a statement on Wednesday. 

Humaidat’s family was informed of his martyrdom on October 18. Israeli occupation authorities have refused to respond to the relevant Palestinian authorities, including the General Authority of Civil Affairs. This conduct compounds the family’s suffering and raises further questions about the circumstances of his martyrdom and who bears responsibility for it.

Humaidat’s family learned of his martyrdom from another prisoner at Abu Kabir Prison, where he had been held since his arrest on September 30, 2026. According to the family, “the prisoner informed them that Ahmad had been suffering from a serious health condition for several days, and that the prison administration had refused to transfer him for medical treatment. One of the prison guards then assaulted him, before his  martyrdom was announced.”

The family also stressed that their son had not suffered from any significant health problems before his arrest. They noted that an autopsy had been performed on his body, which they received yesterday, but that they had been given no details regarding the autopsy report.

Prisoners’ institutions stressed that these accounts, together with the continued withholding of official information, make it imperative to disclose the circumstances surrounding Humaidat's martyrdom and identify those responsible. The case must not be treated as an isolated incident, separate from the conditions experienced by Palestinian political prisoners and detainees inside Israeli occupation prisons.

His martyrdom occurred amid an integrated system of torture, abuse and denial of medical treatment that has turned the ordinary details of daily prison life into instruments of torture and physical and psychological destruction. This system has created an environment that threatens detainees’ lives, regardless of the reasons for or circumstances of their arrest, simply because they are Palestinian.

The institutions emphasized that what is taking place inside the prisons, particularly since the beginning of the genocide, cannot be separated from systematic policies targeting Palestinian prisoners and detainees and stripping them of the most basic guarantees of protection and a dignified life.

In this context, Humaidat’s death, together with his family’s account of his deteriorating health and the denial of medical treatment, demands a serious and independent investigation that establishes the circumstances of what happened, determines responsibility for any negligence or assault, and prevents the truth from being concealed or evaded.

The institutions added that, while calls for investigations into the killing of prisoners inside Israeli occupation prisons are important, they must not become a cover for the continued impunity of those responsible.

The accumulated experience of violations by the occupation demonstrates, they said, that Israeli investigations reflect a policy of complicity within the occupation’s judicial system, through deliberate delays or the closure of cases on the pretext of insufficient evidence. 

Accordingly, responsibility extends beyond demanding disclosure of the circumstances of Humaidat’s death: it also includes holding accountable the system that allows such crimes to continue and prevents their perpetrators from being brought to justice.

The institutions stated that Humaidat’s case once again demonstrates that the lives of Palestinian prisoners and detainees must not remain at the mercy of a detention system whose practices are shrouded in secrecy and whose violations go without effective accountability.

Differences in the reasons for detention do not diminish any detainee’s right to life, physical safety and healthcare, nor do they release the occupation authorities from their legal obligations towards those they detain or from responsibility for any violations to which they are subjected.

Prisoners’ institutions renewed their call for international human rights organisations and United Nations bodies to fulfill their responsibilities and move beyond statements of condemnation and expressions of concern towards concrete action. They called for the circumstances of Ahmad Humaidat’s martyrdom to be uncovered, those responsible to be held accountable, Palestinian prisoners and detainees to be protected, and torture, abuse and the policy of denying medical treatment to be brought to an end.
They stressed that the international system’s inability to enforce accountability does not eliminate responsibility; rather, it compounds the consequences and gives the occupation authorities greater latitude to continue their crimes against the Palestinian people, including crimes targeting prisoners and detainees.

Humaidat’s case is not merely a family matter, nor should it be reduced to the announcement of a death inside a detention facility. It is a matter of the right to life, the right to know the truth, and the right to justice and accountability.

Any response that does not lead to the truth being uncovered, those responsible being held accountable, and violations being stopped will leave these rights suspended and entrench a reality in which Palestinian prisoners are abandoned to face, alone, a system that targets their very existence and seeks to kill them.