The General Authority of Civil Affairs, the Authority of Prisoners and Freed Prisoners Affairs, and the Palestinian Prisoners Club reported the death of two prisoners in the occupation prisons: Samih Suleiman Muhammad Aliwi (61 years old) from Nablus, and Anwar Shaaban Muhammad Aslim (44 years old) from Gaza.

The Prisoners' Authority and the Prisoners' Club said today, Friday, that the martyr Aliwi, based on the available data, was martyred on 11/6/2024, six days after he was transferred from the Ramla prison clinic to Assaf Harofeh Hospital, noting that he was detained before Ramla prison in the Negev prison, and the prison administration did not announce his martyrdom, although it is obligated to do so. As for the martyr Anwar Aslim, he ascended yesterday, 11/14/2024, during his transfer from the Negev prison to Soroka hospital, after a deterioration in his health condition.

The Authority and the Club explained in a joint statement that prisoner Aliwi has been administratively detained since October 21, 2023, and based on a visit conducted by the Prisoners Authority’s lawyer to him on August 21, 2024 in the Negev prison, he stated that he suffered from several health problems before his arrest as a result of a benign tumor in the intestines years ago. As for prisoner Anwar Aslim from Gaza, he has been detained since December 18, 2023, and he did not suffer from any health problems before his arrest, according to his family.

In the details of the visit that took place to the prisoner Aliwi last August, he told the lawyer: “He was suffering from difficult health conditions before his arrest, and he underwent several surgeries, during which part of his intestines was removed due to his infection with a benign tumor at the time, and he was supposed to undergo a new operation in December 2023, but it did not take place due to his arrest, which exacerbated his health condition.”

He also confirmed in his testimony to the lawyer: “He, like many prisoners, was subjected to acts of torture and repeated assaults, especially during his transfer to the clinic. Despite his illness and difficult health condition, they would take him out to the clinic in chains and torture him. He added that he had lost more than 40 kg of weight by the time of the visit, and was no longer able to eat the morsels of food that were given to them. He also did not receive any treatment at all since his arrest, noting that despite the intervention of specialized human rights organizations inside to pressure the prison administration to provide him with treatment, this did not happen. In the visit report, the lawyer noted that the prisoner refused to shave his head and beard until after his release.”

It is noteworthy that prisoner Aliwi is a former prisoner who spent a total of about ten years in the occupation prisons. His arrests began in 1988. He is married and has nine children. Prisoner Aslim is also married and has four children.

The Prisoners’ Affairs Authority and the Prisoners’ Club confirm that the prisoners Aliwi and Aslim were subjected to a systematic crime, as were all the martyred prisoners, through the policy of slow killing and liquidation that the prison system has been pursuing against prisoners for decades, and through a series of fixed crimes and policies, most notably the crime of torture, medical crimes, and the crime of starvation, as these crimes constituted the central reasons for the martyrdom of dozens of prisoners and detainees since the beginning of the war of extermination.

After more than 400 days of the war of extermination against our people in Gaza, the crimes against prisoners and detainees are on the rise. The time factor is the most important factor in determining the fate of prisoners. Many sick prisoners and detainees, who endured the measures and crimes of the occupation system at the beginning of the war, no longer have the ability to do so today. Their health conditions are also clearly deteriorating, and many healthy prisoners have turned into sick prisoners. This is what we see daily, whether through visits, through the courts, or through the statements of released prisoners. The crimes of the occupation against prisoners constitute one aspect of the war of extermination, and one of its forms.

The Prisoners Authority and the Prisoners Club had previously announced in a statement that the prisoners of the Negev prison are facing an escalating health disaster, due to the spread of scabies, and the infection of hundreds among them. This is an example of other central prisons where the disease has spread for several months and its spread has recently escalated significantly, as the prison administration has turned scabies into a tool of torture, abuse and killing.

The Commission and the Club pointed out that the continuation of the catastrophic conditions faced by prisoners, especially the sick and wounded, will certainly lead to the martyrdom of more prisoners in the occupation’s prisons and camps, as the relevant institutions no longer have the ability to limit the number of patients in prisons as a result of the spread of diseases among them, and the arrest of more wounded.

The Prisoners' Authority and the Prisoners' Club held the occupation fully responsible for the martyrdom of the two prisoners, Aliwi and Aslim, adding this crime to the record of the occupation's ongoing and unprecedented crimes since the beginning of the war of extermination, which constituted the bloodiest stage in the history of our steadfast people. Moreover, the number of martyred prisoners and detainees is the highest historically compared to the stages in which Palestine witnessed historic popular uprisings and uprisings.

The Commission and the Club indicated that with the martyrdom of the two prisoners, Aliwi and Aslim, the number of martyr prisoners whose identities are known since 1967 has risen to (280), in addition to dozens of martyr prisoners whose identities and the circumstances of their martyrdom are still being concealed by the occupation, and other detainees who were executed. Of the total number of martyrs of the prisoner movement, the number of dead prisoners after October 7 has risen to (43), whose identities have been announced by the relevant institutions.

The Commission and the Club renewed their demand for the international human rights system to stop the terrifying state of helplessness that surrounds its role in the face of the war crimes of genocide and the crimes committed against prisoners and detainees in the prisons of the Israeli occupation, and to end the state of exceptional immunity that the old colonial states granted to the occupying state of Israel, considering it above accountability, accountability and punishment.