Palestinian prisoners Authority: Israeli occupation’s deliberate medical negligence worsened the health condition of prisoner Hussein Masalmeh

The Palestinian Prisoners and Ex-prisoners Affairs Authority has warned that the Israeli occupation’s deliberate medical negligence of the health situation in the Israeli jails has led to the deterioration of the health condition of the Palestinian prisoner Hussein Masalmeh who suffers from cancer.

In a statement reported by WAFA news agency on Monday, the Authority said that Masalmeh has been detained since 2002. He has been suffering from severe pain in the abdomen, but the occupation authorities delayed in diagnosing his condition and providing necessary medical treatment to him. In a later stage, diagnosis revealed that he had blood cancer, thus increasing the number of prisoners with blood cancer in the occupation detention camps to more than 12.

The authority pointed out that the occupation continues to violate the rights of prisoners at detention centers, especially patients, by deliberately neglecting their health conditions and not providing them with effective treatment. The authority made it clear that with the outbreak of the Corona pandemic and the increasing number of Corona-infected prisoners, there is a great concern over the fate of the sick prisoners with low immunity, such as the cancer patients, especially as they are held in an environment that lacks the minimum health and safety conditions and that contributes to the spread of the deadly disease.

 The authority called on the international community’s human rights as well as the legal and humanitarian institutions to urgently intervene and pressure the occupation authorities to release the sick prisoners, especially cancer patients, in order to save their lives.

Hamda Mustafa