RAMALLAH (PIC)– Palestinian prisoners languishing in harsh imprisonment conditions in Israeli jails went Tuesday on general strike mourning one of their comrades who died in the Negev prison due to deliberate medical neglect on the part of his Israeli jailors.
The prisoners condemned Israel’s policy of intentionally neglecting sick Palestinian captives which jeopardizes their lives. More than 11000 Palestinian citizens are held in Israeli prisons.
Palestinian prisoner Jamal Hassan Saraheen 34 of the West Bank city of Al-Khalil died Tuesday in the Negev prison after the prison’s authority refused to extend him the necessary medical treatment; thus increasing the number of Palestinian inmates dying in Israeli jails to187 since 1967.
PA prisoners’ affairs minister Wasfi Kabaha deprecated the Israeli occupation government over the death of Saraheen adding that his ministry has called on all concerned human rights and legal institutions to immediately intervene to save lives of hundreds of sick Palestinian inmates and to pressure Israel to free them.
More than 1000 Palestinian captives suffer chronic diseases with around 150 of them reportedly in bad need of urgent surgical operations according to the records of the PA prisoners and ex-prisoners’ affairs ministry.
Kabaha moreover revealed that Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails are subjected to cruel torture sessions and are turned into experiment fields for Israel’s medical researches.
Saraheen was arrested in May 2006 and placed under administrative detention for six months that was extended to two months before he passed away Tuesday as he was suffering of a number of severe illnesses in the blood and lungs.
The Mandela legal foundation that caters for Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails affirmed the reason behind Saraheen’s death adding that based on the information it possesses Saraheen died of deliberate medial neglect asserting that the Israeli prisons authority (IPA) paid no attention to Saraheen’s critical condition.
Prisoners’ families in the West Bank cities of Tulkarm and Salfit denounced the harsh imprisonment conditions their beloved ones were living in as well as the violent quelling practices taken by the IPA against them.
