🔴 Detainee Motaz Abu Zneid suffered from severe scabies disease before his martyrdom
14/1/2025

Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS)

Ramallah, Palestine – The 35-year-old detainee Motaz Abu Zneid who was martyred on Monday, January 13, 2025, was suffering from an advanced stage of scabies, during which occupation authorities deprived him of life-saving medical care, leading to his killing, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society revealed today.

The new details emerged after the PPS spoke to one of the recently released detainees who were held with Abu Zneid at the Ganot prison. He told the PPS that Abu Zneid began suffering from scabies skin disease several months ago. The occupation’s prison authorities deliberately delayed providing him with treatment, causing Abu Zneid’s condition to severely worsen. The boils and swelling on his body became very extreme with the passing of time, and he lost a great deal of weight, until he lost the ability to eat, stand and even use the restroom.

“The top layer of Abu Zneid’s skin began to fall off. We demanded the prison administration transfer him to hospital, but they did not heed our demands. On January 4, he lost consciousness, and two days later he was transferred to the hospital,” the former detainee PPS spoke to said.

Abu Zneid is a husband and father to one child from the city of Dura in Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank. He passed away while in the occupation’s Soroka hospital in the 1948-occupied territories. His family said that he did not have any pre-existing medical conditions before his arrest in June 2023.

The PPS, the Commission of Detainees Affairs, and all other relevant institutions hold the occupation fully responsible for the martyrdom of Abu Zneid and the dozens of other Palestinians who have been killed in custody.

Scabies skin disease has not stopped spreading in the occupation’s prisons to this day. The testimonies of current and released prisoners reflect how the occupation used this disease as a tool for torturing and killing them. Prison authorities deliberately refuse to provide hygienic products and enough ventilation to the prisoners. They also refuse to provide prisoners with an adequate amount of food, water, and clothing, leading to an overall state of weakness in the immune system of the detainees.

The case of the martyr Mohammad Munir Musa from Bethlehem, reflects a similar pattern of abuse by the occupation. Musa, who suffered from diabetes, was martyred in October 2024, after he contracted scabies, leading to his martyrdom. There is more information about detainees from Gaza who were recently martyred as a result of scabies.

The number of identified martyred Palestinian detainees since the start of the genocide in Gaza has risen to 55 people. Dozens of other unidentified detainees arrested from Gaza have been martyred and subject to enforced disappearance. This number is the highest on record. Since the occupation of 1967, there have been least 292 identified martyred Palestinian detainees.

The Commission and the PPS urge immediate intervention to save the lives of thousands of Palestinian detainees held by the occupation, and who are being subject to an unprecedented rate of murder, torture and abuse. The international human rights system must take real steps to hold the occupation accountable for the war crimes they continue to commit against our people, and to impose sanctions with the intent of isolating it. The state of exceptional immunity granted to the occupying state of Israel by the world’s colonial powers has allowed it to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity for decades with zero accountability.