UPDATE - Palestinians blame Israel for Gazan prisoner’s death

CHANGES HEADLINE; ADDS HAMAS REMARKS, ADDITIONAL DETAIL

By Aysar al-Iss

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) - A Palestinian detainee from the Gaza Strip has died in an Israeli prison, the Palestine Liberation Organization’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 Israeli prison authorities] in recent years,” it added.

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

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Prisoners' Association, an NGO, announced that Palestinian prisoners languishing in Israeli jails had declared a “state of alert” after Baroud’s martyrdom.

The mobilization saw Palestinian inmates shutting the doors of their jail cells, refusing meals, banging on prison walls and shouting anti-Israel slogans, according to the NGO.

Palestinian resistance faction Hamas, for its part, likewise held Israel responsible for what it described as the inmate’s “murder”.

"Baroud was subject to medical neglect [by the Israeli prison authorities] despite repeated warnings that his health was deteriorating," the group said in a statement.

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