Palestinians abused in Israeli prisons are dying in unprecedented numbers due to medical neglect, and their bodies are not being returned to their familiesThe parents of Ahmad Tazaza are plagued by grief and guilt over their son's death last August in Israel's notorious Megiddo prison.
Ahmad was a healthy young man, aged 20, with no history of known medical problems when they handed him over to the Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank in January 2025.
His parents say they still do not know why their son, the youngest of three brothers, was a wanted man. But the circumstances of his detention were not dissimilar to those faced by thousands of other young Palestinians.
Ahmad was held as an administrative detainee, a form of arbitrary indefinite imprisonment without charge, trial, or access to lawyers. In September 2025, there were officially 10,465 Palestinian men held as “security prisoners”, including 7,425 from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Israeli Prison Service data.
Over a period of months, the Tazaza home in the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya had been repeatedly targeted by Israeli security forces looking for him, and the family had been harassed and threatened.
