The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) announced on Monday that 11 Palestinian prisoners in Gilboa prison were infected with the coronavirus.
The IPS spokesman’s office said that the infected prisoners were taken to quarantine which is usually solitary confinement cells.
Wa’ed Association for Prisoners and Liberated Prisoners confirmed that the infected prisoners complained of symptoms during the previous two days and that they had been in contact with other prisoners who had not been tested for the virus.
Wa’ed accused the IPS of manipulating the method of conducting the tests and announcing the results. It called on the Red Cross to oversee the results and the samples of the prisoners.
Gilboa’s prisoners closed the whole prison last Wednesday after the Israeli special repression units brutally stormed it assaulted and harassed the prisoners and tampered with their belongings.
At the time the prisoners charged that the Israeli forces had used rifle butts in their attack along with other means which led to the injury of some prisoners and caused material damage to their belongings.
The Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons suffer from extremely difficult and poor detention conditions that lack the lowest standards of hygiene and sanitation in addition to overcrowding.
Warnings have escalated recently regarding the danger to the prisoners’ lives in the Israeli occupation prisons following the announcement that several prisoners had been infected with the virus. This is because of the reckless policy that the IPS pursues against the prisoners.
The number of Palestinian prisoners in the occupation prisons reached nearly 4500 including 41 female prisoners. The number of child detainees reached approximately 160 children and administrative detainees reached about 360.
