Palestinian prisoner Emad Sarhan, a 48-year-old from the city of Haifa, was martyred on Sunday inside Israel’s Gilboa prison after spending more than 24 years in captivity.
The Israeli prison service (IPS) announced the death of Sarhan, a resident of Haifa’s Wadi Nisnas neighborhood, in the morning.
Following his arrest on January 20, 2002, Sarhan was subjected to more than two months of interrogation before an Israeli court sentenced him to life imprisonment plus an additional 10 years, serving a significant portion of that time in solitary confinement.
Throughout his years of imprisonment, he faced various punitive measures, most notably long periods of solitary confinement, including four continuous years under the pretext that there was a “secret file” against him, with his isolation order being renewed periodically.
In recent years, the Sarhan family, along with human rights groups, had repeatedly warned of the continuous deterioration in Sarhan’s health, noting that he suffered from chronic heart and arterial issues, high blood pressure, and other ailments that worsened as a result of his prolonged detention.
