RAMALLAH, Palestine/ISTANBUL 

Another Palestinian detainee died in Israeli detention on Sunday, taking the death toll to 79 since October 2023, prisoners’ affairs groups said.

Mahmoud Abdullah, 49, from Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, breathed his last at Israel’s Assaf Harofeh Hospital, southeast of Tel Aviv, after his health deteriorated, the Commission of Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement.

According to the statement, Abdullah was detained on Feb. 1, and his health condition worsened significantly. He was later found to be suffering from cancer.

Despite medical tests confirming he had cancer in an advanced stage, Israel refused to release him and kept him in detention until he was transferred to the hospital one day before his death, the statement said.

The advocacy groups explained that Abdullah was a former prisoner who had previously been detained in 2002 and spent two years in Israeli prisons.

His death brought the number of Palestinians who died in Israeli detention since October 2023 to 79.

Local authorities said that more than 1,051 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, around 10,300 wounded, and over 20,000 arrested, including 1,600 children, since the Gaza war began two years ago.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.