The Israeli occupation’s policy of medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners continues to lead to detainees developing chronic, possibly untreatable diseases, and even death.
One of them is Nasser Abu Hamid, who is battling cancer in the Ramleh prison clinic.
Abu Hamid’s brother Muhammad, who is currently with the detainee, has said that his brother’s health condition is rapidly worsening.
Cancer has spread throughout his body, Muhammad reports, causing damage to his left lung in particular.
Nasser has lost all movement in all his limbs and is suffering an increased heart rate and loss of weight and appetite. He requires a respirator.
Cancer may now be impossible to remove, his brother reports. In a recent medical report, prison doctors acknowledged that Nasser may die suddenly – though Israeli authorities have nevertheless refused to release him.
Nasser Abu Hamid, 49-years-old, is from al-Am’ari refugee camp, in the city of Ramallah in the center of the occupied West Bank. He was in 2002, and was sentenced to seven life sentences, plus 50 years. He is one of five Abu Hamid brothers facing life imprisonment in Israeli prisons.
The number of detainees with serious health problems in occupation prisons is approximately 600.
24 of them are suffering from some form of cancer.
Israeli prison authorities deliberately fail to provide sufficient medical staff and supplies to adequately treat Palestinian detainees, with resultant damage to detainees’ health.
Detainees with serious health conditions are routinely advised to take over-the-counter medications, and even to simply “drink water”.
Thereby the occupation authorities violate Article 91 of the Geneva Convention, which affirms that all detainees are entitled to properly staffed and equipped medical facilities and appropriate food.
