RAMALLAH, Saturday, Saadia Farajallah, 68, died this morning of yet unknown reasons in the Israeli prison of Damon, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said in a statement, as Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and the Foreign Ministry held the Israeli government, in two separate statements, responsible for her death.

Farajallah, a mother of eight from the town of Idna in the south of the West Bank, was detained by the Israeli occupation forces in December while she was near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, and has been in detention since then.

The circumstances behind her death remain unknown until this moment, the PPS said, adding that a state of outrage among the fellow Palestinian detainees dominated the prisons following the news about her death and the prisoners embarked on knocking on the doors of their cells to express their anger.

Farajallah is believed to be the 230th Palestinian to die while in Israeli imprisonment or detention. She was one of 29 female Palestinian political prisoners incarcerated in the Israeli prison of Damon, near Haifa.

The oldest serving of the 29 female Palestinian prisoners in Damon is Maison Musa, from Bethlehem, who has been in prison since 2015 and is serving a 15-year sentence.

Reacting to the death of Farajallah, Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh held the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for her death.

He called on the international human rights committees to open an investigation into the circumstances of her death and to press the occupation authorities to release all the female and sick prisoners.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has also held the Israeli government responsible for her death and called for an international investigation into her death.

It also called on international organizations, such as the Red Cross, to shoulder their responsibilities toward the thousands of Palestinian freedom fighters incarcerated in Israel, particularly the medical negligence in the prisons.

The PPS later said that preliminary reports indicate that Farajallah was taken to Damon clinic after she lost consciousness before she was later pronounced dead.

It said that Farajallah, the oldest among the woman prisoners, was brought to a military court on Tuesday in a wheelchair and that her lawyer has asked that a doctor check her because she was diabetic and had high blood pressure but that the court did not give a ruling on this matter prompting the PPS to claim that she died of medical negligence.

SOURCE: PALESTINE NEWS & INFO AGENCY