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"Israel is responsible for what happened," Issa Qaraqa, the Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs, said at a news conference in Ramallah, in the West Bank.

"I accuse the State of Israel of subjecting him to tough physical and psychological pressure," Mr. Qaraqa said. "He was subjected to a heavy and severe torture."

Israeli authorities said the prisoner, Arafat Jaradat, died of a heart attack. An autopsy was scheduled for Sunday, with a Palestinian forensic specialist and a relative of Mr. Jaradat scheduled to attend.

Amid intensifying demonstrations in the West Bank that some officials and analysts see as the stirrings of a third intifada, or uprising, Israel on Sunday transferred to the Palestinian Authority $100 million in tax revenue that it had been withholding. Isaac Molho, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's special envoy, also sent a message to the Palestinian leadership that Israeli officials described as an "unequivocal demand to restore quiet on the ground."

Israel has refused Palestinian requests to release four prisoners whe have been on long-term hunger strike or 123 people who have been detained since before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. "Some of these people are accused of very heinous crimes," a senior Israeli official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the news media. "They're saying that every Palestinian hunger striker should have a get-out-of-jail-free card. You can't have a system like that. It's not sustainable."

After days of demonstrations in solidarity with the hunger strikers that have included clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers, hundreds of Palestinians turned out Sunday in several cities and villages to protest Saturday's death of Mr. Jaradat, who relatives said worked in a gas station and was the father of a 4-year-old girl and 2-year-old boy. Demonstrators in Gaza waved the flags of Palestinian political factions along with banners reading "Tortured" and "Their freedom is our responsibility."

"We will resort to all means to liberate the prisoners," said Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, the militant Islamist party that rules the Gaza Strip.

Atallah Abu al-Sabah, Hamas's minister of prisoner affairs, criticized Palestinian leaders in the West Bank for their handling of the issue, and called for kidnapping Israeli soldiers "instead of pursuing playful negotiations that brought nothing to the Palestinian cause."

Mr. Jaradat was arrested last Monday for throwing stones at Israeli cars near a West Bank settlement during November's conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Palestinian officials said he admitted the stone-throwing but denied using Molotov cocktails. He also confessed to tossing rocks in a 2006 incident. Officials said his detention was extended 12 days at a hearing on Thursday, during which his lawyer said Mr. Jaradat complained of severe pain in his back and neck that he attributed to his interrogation.

"When he was under interrogation, the interrogator told him, 'Say goodbye to your kids,' " Mr. Jaradat's uncle, Musa, said at the Ramallah news conference. Musa Jaradat said that his nephew's father and brothers had all spent time in Israeli jails, and that before his detention, Arafat Jaradat had sought to join the Palestinian security force.

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, issued a statement expressing "deep sorrow and shock" over Mr. Jaradat's death, saying there was a "need to promptly disclose the true reasons that led to his martyrdom."

Amos Gilad, a senior official in Israel's Defense Ministry, dismissed Palestinian claims that Mr. Jaradat was killed by the authorities. "These inciters know that this is not true," Mr. Gilad said on Israel Radio. "Here in Israel such things cannot happen."

Several Israeli and Palestinian leaders and commentators warned Sunday that Mr. Jaradat's death could set off a third intifada, with most predicting a largely nonviolent movement of civil disobedience like the one Palestinians undertook from 1987 to 1993 rather than the campaign of suicide bombings that began in 2000.

"We're facing an intifada," Qadura Fares, president of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, told the Israeli newspaper Maariv. "The hunger-striking prisoners and the tense demonstrations, the violent clashes during which Palestinian civilians are killed, and the frozen peace process — all indicate that we're sitting on a barrel of dynamite," he added. "It may very well be that Jaradat's death will turn out to have been the match that lit it."

Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a left-leaning member of Israel's Parliament and a former defense minister, echoed that sentiment. "We are on the eve of an intifada," he said on Israel Radio. "I know these guys and I see the signs."

Alex Fishman, a senior columnist for the newspaper Yediot Aharanot, called Sunday for Israelis to "please, wake up."

"The highway leading to an intifada is wide open," Mr. Fishman wrote, saying Mr. Jaradat's death "is liable to become the opening shot."

The issue of prisoners resonants in Palestinian society, where they are seen as heroes suffering for a cause. Xavier Abu Eid, a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, said Sunday that some 800,000 Palestinians had been imprisoned by Israel since 1967. Mr. Qaraka, the minister for prisoner affairs, said that Mr. Jaradat was the 203rd prisoner to die in that time.

"Our people feel affected," Mr. Abu Eid said. "Arafat Jaradat, he died either while or after he was interrogated. Many of our people get interrogated on a daily basis. Our people currently are demonstrating because there is an unjust situation."