Arab News | Israel returns body of Palestinian child who died in custody last year

LONDON: Israeli authorities on Thursday returned the body of a 17-year-old Palestinian boy who died in custody last year, following legal efforts by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Walid Khaled Ahmad, from Silwad, east of Ramallah, died in Megiddo Prison in March 2025, about six months after he was detained, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

The commission and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said that the boy had been starved and denied medical care, causing his health to deteriorate severely.

An Israeli court in Hadera closed the investigation into his death in December, saying that all avenues of inquiry had been exhausted. But the Palestinian organizations disputed that conclusion, citing medical findings.

Ahmad’s body was returned after a legal effort led by commission lawyer Nadia Daqa.

Following the handover the Palestinian organizations said that Israeli authorities still held the bodies of 98 Palestinians who had died in custody since 1967. Eighty-seven of those were among the 92 people who had died in Israeli custody since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, they said.

The organizations also raised concerns about Palestinian children in Israeli detention, saying that about 350 were being held in Ofer and Megiddo prisons. They are reported to have suffered starvation, torture, physical assaults, denial of medical care and harsh conditions.

The groups said that Ahmad’s case illustrated both abuses against Palestinian prisoners and what they described as the Israeli judicial system’s role in shielding those responsible.

They called for the return of all bodies held by Israeli authorities and accountability for abuses against prisoners and detainees.