Daqqah died on Sunday at the Assaf Harofeh Hospital due to medical negligence by Israeli regime authorities, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission and the Prisoners’ Club announced in a statement, according to Palestinian media.
He suffered from chronic lung disease and was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer in December 2022.
Prominent rights group, Amnesty International, issued a report in August 2023, calling for the immediate release of Daqqah. It said that the Israeli Prison Service had denied him access to a potentially life-saving bone marrow transplant by refusing to transfer him to a civilian hospital.
Palestinian human rights organizations also repeatedly said that Daqqah’s health condition had deteriorated due to medical negligence.
Meanwhile, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad movements expressed their condolences on the martyrdom of Walid Daqqah.
Hamas, in a statement, said that Daqqah, who was in captivity for 38 years and suffered from cancer died due to medical neglect in the prison of the occupying regime.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement also expressed its condolences to the Palestinian nation and said that Daqqah’s martyrdom is a living example of the suffering and pains of Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons.
We pledge to our nation and the families of the prisoners that we will not spare any effort to free them from the enemy's prisons, the movement said in a statement.
Daqqah was a novelist and activist who was arrested in 1986 and sentenced to 37 years in jail for his involvement in the killing of an Israeli soldier.
He was set to complete his jail term in February 2023, but his sentence was extended for two years for alleged smuggling mobile phones into prison.
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