A 17-year-old Palestinian boy died following “likely prolonged malnutrition” in an Israeli prison, according to an autopsy carried out by an Israeli pathologist.
The teenager, Walid Khalid Ahmad, is the first minor to have died in Israeli custody since the conflict between Hamas and Israel started in October 2023, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS).
He died in Israel’s Megiddo Prison on March 22, according to his family and a joint statement by the PPS and the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs.
Ahmad was arrested on September 30 last year in his home in Silwad, a Palestinian town northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. His father Khalid said that he was detained based on alleged offenses between 2020 and 2023 that included throwing stones and Molotov cocktails.
The autopsy report described signs of severe weight and muscle loss, including loss of muscle mass at the temples, a sunken appearance at the abdomen and “almost absent muscle mass or subcutaneous fat on trunk and extremities.”
“Autopsy findings suggest that Walid suffered from extreme, likely prolonged malnutrition as observed by his deeply cachectic state and complaints of inadequate food intake since at least December 2024,” it said. “It needs to be noted that malnutrition increases the risk of infectious complications including severe sepsis,” it added.
At least 63 Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank have so far died in Israeli detention since the start of the latest conflict, the PPS said, including at least 40 from Gaza.
“As in any case of the death of a prisoner, an investigative team was appointed to examine the incident. Upon completion of the investigation its findings will be forwarded to the authorized authorities,” it said.
‘The painful truth’
The family was allowed to attend several court hearings in the case, which were held remotely by video conference calls, he said.
The family was informed of his death on March 24, two days after he died, Khalid said, adding that days later, he received a phone call from the medical team that conducted the autopsy, who told him “the painful truth” behind his son’s death.
An avid athlete, Ahmad did not suffer from any known illnesses before his detention, his father said, pointing to his treatment in custody as the cause of his son’s death.
“Walid was a young man with great values,” Khalid said. “What happened was unexpected.”
The Commission on Detainees’ Affairs and the PPS said Walid’s death was “proof of the horrific level of abuse faced by detainees inside Israeli occupation prisons, including hundreds of children.”
Israel has ramped up arrests in the occupied West Bank since the latest war began, PPS said, with some 15,700 arrests so far recorded by its count.