On February 25, in a joint statement,the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestine Prisoner’s Society (PPS) confirmed that the Israeli occupation authorities had informed them of the death of Mus’ab Hani Haniyeh, 35, on 5 January, in Israeli custody.

Haniyeh, a father to a nine-year-old child, was arrested in Hamad City on 3 March last year. According to the statement, he had no known serious health conditions prior to his detention.

The Israeli army in a response confirmed Haniyeh’s death in January but made no mention of the cause. “The occupation indicates that an investigation is underway in an attempt to evade any international accountability,” the joint statement added.

Prisoner advocacy institutions denounce that :

• Prisoners endure systematic acts of torture, food deprivation, deliberate medical neglect, sexual abuse, and medical experimentation that lead to serious and fatal illnesses. The Commission for Prisoner Affairs and the Prisoners’ Club hold Israel fully responsible for the assassination of Musab Haniyah and call on the international community to take immediate action against Israel's war crimes.

• A deliberate Israeli strategy of concealing and manipulating information regarding the fate of detainees. The occupation systematically refuses to return the bodies of murdered prisoners, making any independent verification of the circumstances of their deaths impossible.

• Prisoner rights organizations warn that extrajudicial executions and targeted killings of detainees are an integral part of Israel’s war against the Palestinian people.

With the death of Haniyah, the number of prisoners killed in Israeli jails since the beginning of the genocidal war has risen to 59, including at least 38 from Gaza. This is the deadliest toll ever recorded in the history of the Palestinian prisoners' movement since 1967, bringing the total number of detainees killed by Israel since that date to 296.