Hamas calls for avenging death of West Bank leader in Israel jail

ِA Hamas leader in the West Bank has died in Israeli custody, local prisoners’ rights groups said on Friday, bringing the total number of Palestinian prisoners who died in Israeli prisons since October to 19.

Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, 63, died overnight after he was transferred to Soroka Hospital in Israel in deteriorating health.

Abu Ara had been held in the Ramon jail in southern Israel since his arrest on Oct. 30. The Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a joint statement that Abu Ara had struggled with serious health problems and needed intensive medical care even before his arrest.

According to his family cited in local media, Abu Ara was scheduled to receive treatment for blood and skin conditions before he was arrested. The Hamas leader also suffered from a chronic disease.

“From the moment of his arrest, Sheikh Abu Ara, like all prisoners, faced unprecedented crimes and procedures since the start of the war of extermination on Gaza, including torture, starvation and medical neglect, which were primary causes of prisoner deaths in Israeli prisons and camps,” the statement read.

The two groups said that so far 19 Palestinians who were held in Israeli jails since the start of the Israel-Hamas war Oct. 7 have died.

They hold Israel “fully responsible” for Abu Ara’s death as well as for the fate of thousands of other Palestinian detainees held in its jails.

In a statement released early Friday, Hamas also blamed Israel for Abu Ara's death, accusing it of “medical negligence.”

“This heinous crime falls within the framework of the ongoing war of extermination, and within the framework of the systematic killings carried out by the occupation,” Hamas said, calling on all fighters to take up arms against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank to avenge Abu Ara’s death.

Israel has not commented on the reports yet.

Israel launched its air and ground offensive against the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas’ cross-border assault on Oct. 7, which killed nearly 1,200 people and took over 240 others hostage.

The fighting in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the enclave. The United Nations estimates that around 1.9 million people have been displaced.

In parallel, Israel stepped up its raids in West Bank towns and villages as part of efforts to prevent a new front.

According to an infographic by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Society, at least 9,800 Palestinians, including 340 women and 680 children, have been arrested by Israeli forces in the West Bank since Oct. 7 as part of an Israeli detention campaign, which the army claims is targeting wanted individuals and Hamas militants.

Former Palestinian prisoners have claimed to have been tortured and abused by prison authorities during their detention.

In November, Amnesty International said it had documented “numerous incidents of torture and other ill-treatment by Israeli forces including severe beatings and deliberate humiliation of Palestinians who are detained in dire conditions.”

Who was Abu Ara?

Abu Ara, from the town of Aqaba in the West Bank’s Jenin governorate, had been arrested multiple times since 1990, spending a total of 12 nonconsecutive years behind bars.

He joined the Hamas group in the West Bank in 1985 after its establishment and founded its branch in Aqaba in 1987.

Abu Ara was among hundreds of members of Hamas and other Palestinian groups who were exiled to a camp near the village of Marj al-Zuhur in southern Lebanon in late 1992. The mass deportation by Israel came in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli border guard by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades at the time.

From 1998 to 2007, Abu Ara headed Hamas’ Shura Council in Jenin, a consultative body that elects the members of the group’s political bureau.

During the 2005 municipal elections, he was elected member of the Aqaba Municipality on the Reform and Change List affiliated with Hamas, and became the mayor of Aqaba in 2007.

His brother, Allam Abu Ara, who was a leader in Hamas’ military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was killed by Israeli forces in 1996 in Jenin.