Palestinian resistance leader Hassan Salameh, a senior commander in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was shot nine times by Israeli prison guards inside his isolation cell and remains in extremely critical condition, his fiancée, writer Ghufran al-Zamil, said Monday.

The attack occurred on September 28, the same day far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stormed Salameh’s cell at Ganot Prison, surrounded by armed guards, and told the shackled prisoner, “I want to kill you, I want to execute you.”

Palestinian Prisoners’ Center and Prisoners’ Media Office statements described the footage as showing clear signs of starvation, torture, and deliberate medical neglect, holding the Zionist regime fully responsible for his life.

Salameh, born in 1971 in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza to a family displaced during the 1948 Nakba, has been imprisoned since 1996.

He received 48 life sentences, one of the heaviest terms ever imposed, for organizing retaliatory operations after Israel assassinated Qassam commander Yahya Ayyash.

He has spent roughly half of his nearly 30 years behind bars in solitary confinement, including prolonged isolation after the October 2023 events. Israel has repeatedly refused to include him in prisoner-exchange deals despite longstanding demands by the resistance.

Al-Zamil and prisoner advocacy groups reported that forces beat Salameh before and after the Ben-Gvir visit, then opened fire with nine rounds.

He was later photographed for documentation but returned to his cell with only basic painkillers and no proper treatment.

A lawyer’s visit on November 2 confirmed his deteriorating condition, with visible exhaustion and ongoing suffering.

Palestinian sources described the episode as the latest escalation in the regime’s systematic policy of torture, starvation, and medical neglect against thousands of Palestinian detainees.

The incident fits a broader pattern. Ben-Gvir has repeatedly used prison visits for electoral propaganda, boasting of turning prisoners’ lives into “hell” while advancing calls for executions and mass displacement.

Palestinian organizations labeled the cell raid a “cheap political stunt” and “cowardly bullying” of a defenseless prisoner.

Hamas and other resistance factions have demanded urgent international intervention to protect detainees and secure their release.

Salameh is among roughly 10,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, many without charge or trial. The regime’s treatment of these prisoners -- documented by rights groups as including beatings, isolation, and denial of care -- continues amid the wider war of aggression against Gaza and the occupied territories.

Resistance groups have long identified veteran prisoners such as Salameh as symbols of steadfastness whose freedom is inseparable from the broader struggle against occupation.