Sael Rajab Abu Nasr, a 60-year-old Palestinian from Gaza, has died inside Israeli custody on 21 January 2025 after being held since November 2023. The Palestinian Prisoners and Ex‑Prisoners Affairs Authority and the Prisoners’ Club announced his death today, describing it as yet another tragic example of deliberate mistreatment in detention.

According to these organisations, Gaza’s detainees are enduring torment on an unprecedented scale: torture, starvation, medical neglect, sexual assault and other systematic abuses. Recent testimonies from Gaza prisoners reveal increasingly harrowing conditions. The martyrdom of Mr Abu Nasr brings the known tally of detainees who have died since the recent genocide began to at least 75, including 46 documented from Gaza. Since 1967, prisoner fatalities with known identities number 312, the highest recorded in the history of Palestinian detainees.

The authorities warn that the death toll continues to rise as thousands remain held under escalating risks. Many are reportedly forced into conditions that foster infections, nutritional deprivation, severe illness and psychological trauma. With at least 10,800 detainees by early July 2025, comprising 48 women, over 440 children, around 3,600 administrative detainees and 2,454 Palestinians from Gaza designated as ‘unlawful combatants’, the crisis shows no sign of abating.

The Palestinian prison organisations hold the Israeli authorities fully accountable, demanding an impartial international inquiry into detainee deaths since the escalation. They call for concrete action: sanctions to isolate the occupation internationally, war crimes prosecutions for its leaders, and renewed global commitment to the principles of human rights. Such measures, they argue, are essential to halt ongoing atrocities and restore accountability in a system they say has failed the detainees and their families.