Jailed Gazan abruptly dies in Israeli custody: PLO

By Aysar al-Iss

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) - A Palestinian detainee from the Gaza Strip has died in an Israeli prison, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)’s Commission on Detainees’ Affairs said Wednesday.

According to the commission, Fares Baroud, 51, from Gaza City’s Al-Shati refugee camp, died shortly after being transferred from the Raymond detention center to an Israeli hospital.

"The causes of the prisoner’s death remain unclear,” the commission said in a statement. “But he had certainly been subject to deliberate neglect [by the prison authorities] in recent years.”

The commission went on to hold Israel’s Raymond prison -- along with the Israeli authorities in general -- responsible for Baroud’s untimely death.

Baroud was arrested in 1991 and sentenced to life behind bars for his alleged involvement in the death of an Israeli settler.