Red Cross says office in Gaza damaged in ‘attack’

RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said Monday that a teenage inmate died in an Israeli jail, decrying a spike in deaths in custody since the start of the Gaza war.
In a statement, the group announced the death of Walid Khaled Abdullah Ahmad, 17, in Meggido prison in northern Israel under unknown circumstances.
Israel’s Prison Service said in a statement that a 17-year-old prisoner had died Sunday at the facility.
“His health condition is covered by medical confidentiality,” the statement said.
One of thousands of Palestinians in Israeli custody, Ahmad was the 63rd Palestinian inmate to die in an Israeli jail since the October 2023 outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, according to the Prisoners Club.
The advocacy group said Ahmad, from the town of Silwad near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, was detained on September 30. It was not clear what led to his arrest.
The Prisoners Club said that a “growing number” of detainees have died in Israeli custody due to “systematic abuses” throughout the Gaza war.
“This period has been the deadliest in the history of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement since 1967,” it said, referring to the year Israel seized Palestinian territories including the West Bank in a war.
Rights groups including Israel’s B’Tselem have documented numerous deaths of Palestinians in Israeli prisons during the Gaza war.
B’Tselem has also reported worsening detention conditions for Palestinians, including “systematic mistreatment” and “torture,” which Israeli authorities have denied.
The Prisoners Club said in September there were at least 250 Palestinian minors in Israeli custody.
According to non-government group Defense for Children International Palestine, “each year approximately 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12 years old, are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system. The most common charge is stone-throwing.”

BERLIN: Germany said on Monday it was extremely worried by the surge in civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip since Israel renewed its full-scale military offensive on the occupied Palestinian territory.
Israel restarted intense air strikes across the densely populated Strip on Tuesday followed by ground operations, shattering the relative calm of a six-week ceasefire agreement with Hamas, which governs Gaza.
Negotiations have stalled over an extension of the ceasefire.
Israel and the United States have sought to change the terms of the ceasefire deal, a move rejected by Hamas as a violation of the agreement all parties signed.
“It is now very clear that we must quickly return to negotiations and to the ceasefire that was in place,” German foreign ministry spokesman Christian Wagner said in Berlin.
Israel’s renewed military operations would not lead to the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza being released and meant that “the humanitarian situation is once again catastrophic,” he said.
Berlin, traditionally a staunch ally of Israel, also condemned “unacceptable statements” by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who last week threatened to annex parts of Gaza unless Hamas releases the remaining Israeli hostages.
Katz has also said that measures targeting Hamas could include implementing US President Donald Trump’s proposal for the United States to redevelop Gaza as a Mediterranean resort after the removal of its Palestinian inhabitants to other Arab countries.
The Israeli government has announced plans for a special agency for the “voluntary departure” of Gazans.
“If the aim is to set up an authority that has the permanent expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as its goal, then that is unacceptable and must be condemned,” Wagner said.
He also condemned an Israeli decision to recognize more than a dozen new settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying the “expansive settlement policy” undermines efforts toward a two-state solution.
“The German government rejects Israel’s entire settlement policy as legally unacceptable. It is clear that this policy must end,” he said.
On October 7, 2023, fighters from Hamas launched a cross-border attack in Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people and the capture of 251 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s ensuing bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has killed at least 50,021 people in the territory, the Gaza health ministry said on Sunday.
The United Nations considers the ministry’s figures to be reliable.