Israel court approves autopsy of Palestinian detainee

The Israeli occupation court in Beersheba has approved an autopsy of Mosab Audaily, a 20-year-old Palestinian detainee from Nablus who died in Israeli custody, reported Wafa news agency.

The Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society announced that the decision follows a formal request to investigate the circumstances surrounding Audaily’s death.

He was serving a 13-month sentence in Israeli jails when he was pronounced dead at the Soroka Medical Centre in Beersheva in southern Israel, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement.

The statement noted that Audaily was detained on 22 March 2024 and was scheduled to be released in three days.

While the statement did not elaborate on how he died, it said Audaily died “as a result of the organised crimes that have been practiced by the Israeli occupation prisons in an unprecedented manner since the start of the ongoing genocide” in Gaza.

The Israeli occupation authorities are yet to comment on Audaily’s death.

According to Palestinian figures, at least 64 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli captivity since October 2023, including at least 40 from Gaza.

Palestinian authorities estimate that at least 301 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli prisons since Tel Aviv’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.

Over 9,500 Palestinians remain in Israeli prisons. The figure does not include those arrested from the Gaza Strip since October 2023 whose numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.

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