The General Authority for Civil Affairs reported that the Israeli authorities decided to release the body of the Palestinian prisoner Dawood al-Khatib who died in the Israeli prison on September 2, 2020.

The authority added that the body will be handed over in Bethlehem city Friday evening after more than five months following his death in the prison.

It is worth noting that Al-Khatib, 45, died of severe heart failure resulting from cardiomyopathy and coronary artery disease in the Israeli Ofer prison, west of Ramallah, only a few months before the end of his 18-year sentence.

Nearly 225 Palestinian prisoners died in the Israeli prisons since 1967, most of them due to the policy of deliberate medical negligence.