Palestinian prisoners who are ill face slow death due to the deliberate medical neglect of the Israeli prison service (IPS) that delays urgent medical treatment or even blocks the prisoners from receiving treatments at all. Examples of medical neglect vary from delaying injections giving painkillers instead of providing medical examination and worse of all rejecting demands of undergoing urgent operations. As a result prisoners’ health deteriorates sometimes leading to their death inside the prisons or shortly after their release. Moreover sick prisoners who usually require special care are either held in cells of confinement under horrific circumstances or tortured by keeping them alone for long times after they undergo medical surgeries.
83-year-old Palestinian prisoner Fouad Shobaki from Gaza who is the eldest prisoner in the Israeli prisons is diagnosed with prostate cancer. He also suffers from pain in his eyes stomach and heart in addition to hypertension. On the 5th of July Israeli early release committee rejected an appeal to release prisoner Shobaki who is supposed to be released in eight months the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) reported.
PPS has presented statistics showing that 22 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody are suffering from different degrees of cancer most notably Nasser Abu Hamid a 49-year-old resident of Al-Amari camp who has been detained since 2002 and is serving seven life sentences and an additional 50 years in prison. In October 2021 Abu Hmaid underwent a medical surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in the lungs and is currently facing an imminent risk of death. In January 2022 his doctor reported that Nasser had acute pneumonia as a result of a bacterial infection that led to a failure of his lungs and caused him to fall into a coma.
On the 2nd of July 2022 68-year-old Palestinian prisoner Saadiya Matar from al-Khalil died behind Israeli bars the Asra Media Office reported. “Matar had suffered from medical neglect and harsh incarceration conditions during her presence in Damon jail” senior Hamas official Zaher Jabbarin had commented adding that Matar was beaten by Israeli soldiers a few months prior to her death.
In May 2022 Ihab al-Kilani died after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly after ending his 6-month administrative detention term during which he was subject to deliberate medical negligence.
Moreover Majdi Hammad who was released alongside hundreds of other prisoners in October 2011 died on the 18th of March 2014 from heart disease that was left untreated for years while in Israeli prisons.
The PIC talked to the ex-prisoner Akram Qassem who was released in Wafa al-Ahrar swap deal in 2011. He reported that he accompanied Hammad in the Israeli prisons and witnessed that the IPS had been treating Majdi’s illness in the heart by giving him medicine for the stomach.
Qassem himself suffered several pains in the Israeli prisons due to the brutal torture he was subjected to during his arrest in order to extract confessions from him which affected his health condition further worsened by medical negligence.
“While in Israeli jails I suffered severe pain in the ears due to the beatings during the interrogations for which I didn’t receive treatment except painkillers” Qassem said adding that he needed to undergo an operation yet the prison administration kept delaying it.
When Qassem was finally allowed to undergo the operation after five years of demanding he was transferred from Nafha prison. “I was handcuffed and my feet were tied to the bed of the hospital during the operation” he underlined.
On the 8th of September 2019 Palestinian prisoner and journalist Bassam al-Sayeh died in prison. With Bassam’s death the number of withheld bodies of Palestinian prisoners became five out of 52 Palestinian bodies since 2015. Those five prisoners are Aziz Ewisat Saleh al Barghouthi Faris Baroud Nassar Taqatqa and Bassam al-Sayeh.
“I can still remember when I was with al-Sayeh in the prison especially when I helped him to breathe after he was forced to take 75 pills in one day” Mohammed al-Qeeq who is an ex-prisoner told the Al-Aqsa Channel.
According to human rights sources around 5000 Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli jails with an estimated 700 patients suffering from various illnesses and diseases such as cancer paralysis disability in addition to bullet injuries and chronic diseases. The rise in the number of sick prisoners is attributed to the deliberate medical neglect practiced against patient prisoners by the Israeli prison administration.
