Israeli Supreme Court rejects petition filed for release of body of Palestinian prisoner who died in Israeli custody

RAMALLAH: The Israeli Supreme Court rejected on Monday a petition filed by the family of Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqa, who died in Israeli custody after 38 years of detention, against the occupation's decision to withhold his body. Daqqa died in Israeli custody on April 7, 2024. In a joint statement, The Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS) and the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission said the Supreme Court's decision was not surprising, considering the level of brutality and unprecedented crimes practiced by the occupation at its current and dangerous level. The statement stressed that Israel, the occupying state, is the only country in the world that practices the policy of systematically holding the bodies of slain Palestinians to use them as a tool for achieving political goals, noting that this policy has been one of the most prominent strategies employed by the occupation throughout history. The occupation is currently withholding the bodies of 34 Palestinian prisoners who died while in their custody. However, it continues to withhold the bodies of dozens of detainees from Gaza and refuses to reveal their identities. 'They are part of the hundreds of martyrs held in numbered cemeteries and refrigerated morgues,' said the statement. Daqqa spent 38 years in the occupation's jails, until he died in prison due to the policy of deliberate medical negligence carried out against Palestinian prisoners. The occupation authorities issued a life sentence against him, which was later set at 37 years. In 2018, the occupation added two years to his sentence after he was charged with attempting to bring cellular phones into the prison to become 39 years. During his detention, Daqqa was subjected to a series of repressive policies, including solitary confinement and arbitrary transfer, against the background of his writings in particular. Daqqa, from Baqa al-Gharbiyye in the 1948-occupied territories, produced many books, studies and articles while in detention, significantly contributing to the underst anding of the prison experience. Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA