Martyrdom of prisoner Imad Sarhan from Haifa inside Gilboa prison

SadaNews - The Israeli occupation authorities informed the family of prisoner Imad Rajeh Sarhan (47 years old) from Haifa in the occupied territories of 1948, of the martyrdom of their son in Gilboa prison, after he suffered a heart attack yesterday, without providing any additional details regarding the circumstances of his martyrdom or the state of his health prior to his death.

The Palestinian Prisoners' Affairs Authority and the Palestinian Prisoners' Club stated that prisoner Imad Sarhan has been detained since 15/10/2001, and is sentenced to life imprisonment. During the early years of his detention, he was subjected to harsh and lengthy interrogations accompanied by systematic torture methods, which left serious and lasting health effects on his body, exacerbating his health condition over the years of his detention, along with repeated incidents of solitary confinement.

The authority and the club added that the prolonged years of detention, coupled with torture and systematic medical neglect, led to the prisoner Sarhan suffering from chronic diseases of the heart, arteries, and veins, in addition to his suffering from high blood pressure.

In the recent years of his detention, he was forced to move using a wheelchair due to the severe deterioration of his health condition; nevertheless, the prison administration continued to hold him in harsh and difficult conditions. 

The authority and the club confirmed in a statement issued today, Sunday, that prisoner Sarhan is considered one of the victims of medical crimes and systematic torture policies faced by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons, especially since the beginning of the genocide against our Palestinian people. During this phase, the prison system has adopted more brutal policies based on torture, starvation, systematic medical neglect, and harsh isolation, amid the continued prevention of International Red Cross teams from performing their monitoring and humanitarian roles, and depriving prisoners from communicating with their families.

The two institutions pointed out that with the martyrdom of prisoner Sarhan, who is among the life-sentenced prisoners numbered at (118), the number of martyrs from the prisoner movement whose identities have been announced since the beginning of the genocide has risen to (90) martyrs, while the number of martyrs from the prisoner movement since 1967 has reached (327) martyrs, according to available historical documentation.

The Prisoners' Affairs Authority and the Prisoners' Club held the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for the martyrdom of prisoner Imad Sarhan, and renewed their demand to the international human rights system to move from the circle of condemnation and documentation to taking practical and effective actions that lead to holding the leaders of the occupation accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against prisoners, detainees, and the Palestinian people in general, and to work to end the state of impunity provided by other international powers to the occupation system over decades, which peaked with the ongoing genocide, despite the accumulation of compelling evidence, documents, and testimonies confirming the perpetration of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the occupation.

In this context, the authority and the club affirm that the escalating crimes that the Israeli prison system continues to commit against prisoners and detainees are part of the comprehensive genocide targeting the Palestinian people, and that what happens inside prisons cannot be separated from the colonial project based on killing, starvation, torture, and subjugation. The occupation authorities, through these policies, aim to carry out slow executions against prisoners, making this phase the bloodiest and cruelest in the history of the Palestinian prisoner movement.

According to available data from specialized institutions, as of June 2026, the number of Palestinian prisoners in the occupation's prisons exceeds (9400), of which (3324) are administrative detainees, and (1316) are classified by the occupation authorities as "unlawful combatants."