The Palestinian Center for Prisoners’ Advocacy warns of the alarming rise in the number of martyrs due to torture and medical neglect in Israeli occupation prisons, amid ongoing international silence and the failure of the global human rights system to take effective action.
On Friday, June 13, 2025, Palestinian detainee Raed Ismail Asasa (57 years old) from the town of Allar, north of Tulkarm, was martyred in one of the occupation’s hospitals, nearly 27 days after his arrest on the pretext of entering the 1948-occupied territories without a permit while working in the city of Baqa al-Gharbiyye.
The late Raed had been working with his brother, Mahmoud Asasa (52 years old), who remains in detention at Al-Jalama prison.
According to the family, Raed Asasa suffered from severe dental infections that developed into chest inflammation, then a blood clot and kidney failure, all due to deliberate medical neglect. Prison authorities delayed his treatment for more than ten days until he lost consciousness and was transferred in critical condition to the hospital. The family was officially informed of his death on Friday.
The Palestinian Center for Prisoners’ Advocacy holds the Israeli occupation fully responsible for the martyrdom of detainee Raed Asasa. We consider this a documented medical and humanitarian crime, part of a systematic policy targeting prisoners—especially Palestinian workers, thousands of whom have been arrested since the beginning of the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip and have been subjected to various forms of humiliation and abuse.
With the martyrdom of Raed Asasa, the number of prisoners martyred since October 7, 2023, rises to 72, including 5 workers. Meanwhile, the occupation continues to withhold information about dozens of deceased detainees, particularly from Gaza, revealing the extent of the atrocities being committed.
The Center reminds the public that the total number of known prisoner martyrs since 1967 has reached 309, most of whom died due to torture or deliberate medical neglect, making this the bloodiest period in the history of the Palestinian prisoner movement.
The martyrdom of Raed Asasa is yet another crime in the record of the occupation’s system, built on neglect and torture. It reflects the utter disregard for Palestinian lives, especially those of prisoners, in the absence of legal deterrence and international accountability.
The Palestinian Center for Prisoners’ Advocacy calls on the international community and its legal and human rights institutions to:
- Form an independent international committee to investigate the circumstances of detainees’ deaths;
- Impose deterrent sanctions on the occupying state;
- End the policy of international impunity granted to Israel under a shameful cover of silence;
- Urgently act to save the lives of thousands of prisoners who face the same fate.
The Center affirms that the world’s silence is a partnership in the crime—and will be recorded as a disgrace in the pages of history and human justice.
