A founding member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades terrorist group pleaded guilty to killing seven Israelis and five Palestinian allies with cancer in Israeli custody Tuesday morning, Palestinian officials said.
Nasir Abu Hamed, 51, was diagnosed with lung cancer last August, and his condition has since worsened, with cancer cells spreading throughout his body, including his brain, according to the Palestinian Prisoner and Ex-Prisoner Affairs Commission Was
The commission, along with other Palestinian groups, accused the Israel prison service of negligently and intentionally killing Abu Hamed, saying that his cancer should have been detected earlier and treated better.
The prison service rejected the allegation, saying the prisoner “received regular and close care from IPS medical staff and outside professionals.”
In recent months, Palestinian groups have also called for Abu Hameed to be released from prison because of his health condition and threatened attacks if he died in Israeli custody. Similar threats have been issued regarding other vulnerable security prisoners in the past, but they rarely materialize.
Following Abu Hamed’s death, some Palestinian groups called for a general strike in the West Bank, including the Palestinian Bar Association and the General Union of Palestinian Teachers, which called for a work stoppage at 11 a.m. on Tuesday.
In 2002, Abu Hamed, the right-hand man of arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti, was convicted of murdering seven Israelis – Eliyahu Cohen, Binyamin and Talia Kahane, Gad Rizwan, Yosef Habi, Eli Dahan and Salim Barkat – in a series of terror attacks. Attacks during the Second Intifada that he either personally carried out or directed from afar. During the trial, Israeli officials described him as a “killing machine”.
He was also convicted on 12 counts of attempt to murder and several other security-related charges and is serving multiple life sentences.
He had previously been convicted of murdering five Palestinians who had collaborated with Israel in the 1990s, but was released a few years later as part of the Oslo Accords.
As Abu Hameed’s health deteriorated, he was taken to Shamir Medical Center on Monday, where he was given medicine to control the pain.
According to official Palestinian news outlet Wafa, his mother was in the process of seeking permission to visit him in hospital when he died. His family was first allowed to visit him in hospital in January after he had surgery to remove a tumor in his lung.
