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CAIRO - A Palestinian national passed away over the weekend inside his cell in a detention center in El-Arish, the capital of the restive province of North Sinai , a family member of the deceased told ������ on Wednesday.

Ayman Moussa Al-Gazar had been detained by state security police in August last year and was held since then without charge, said the family member, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety

“Ayman's health deteriorated in detention and he lost his life on Saturday. His body was given to his wife and he was buried in El-Arish on Tuesday,” the source said.

According to another source at the coroner’s office, who also declined to be named for the same reason, Gazar died of cardiac arrest. However, his family claimed that his death was the result of “deliberate medical negligence inside detention.”  

It was not immediately clear why Gazar was detained last August. He was born in North Sinai and lived there.

Gazar was 51 years old when he died and had suffered from a number of chronic illnesses including diabetes and hypertension.

Local and international human rights groups have estimated that about 60 detainees  their lives at Egyptian prisons in 2021 alone.   

North Sinai has been restive since 2013 and the Egyptian authorities have been fighting an IS-led insurgency which exacerbated after the military coup which overthrew the country's first democratically elected leader, Mohammed Morsi.

The insurgency has impacted almost all aspects of civilian life in the province.