Palestinian warnings of a catastrophe threatening the lives of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli occupation prisons

The lives of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention camps are threatened with death in light of the Israeli occupation’s refusal to enter sterilization tools to detention centers and to address the new Coronavirus.

 “The racist occupation authorities’ practices are part of the organized terrorism that it engages with in its war against the Palestinian presence, which affects the health of the prisoners,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.  

“What the Israeli occupation is doing comes at a time when international and humanitarian efforts are intensifying to face the danger of the Coronavirus outbreak,” the Ministry added.

The Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs clarified that the practices of the Israeli occupation in preventing Palestinians from taking precautionary measures from the Coronavirus threaten the lives of 5,000 thousand Palestinian prisoners, including 200 children and 700 patients suffering from chronic diseases such as heart, kidneys, cancer, diabetes, dozens of women and the elderly.

 The Commission said that the Israeli occupation refuses to provide the Palestinian prisoners with cleaning and sterilization materials and refuses to release those with weak immunity as a result of deliberately neglecting their health conditions and holding them in very poor conditions.

Head of the Studies and Documentation Unit of Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs Abdel Nasser Farwana said in a statement to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) correspondent that there is great concern over the prisoners ’lives about the spread of the Coronavirus in light of the deteriorating health conditions of hundreds of them including children, women and elderly people.

Farwana said that the Israeli occupation authorities prevented the families and lawyers from visiting the prisoners and no one knows their health and psychological conditions with the spread of the Coronavirus.

 The President of Hussam Association for Detainees Muwaffaq Hamid stated that the Israel-run camps are endemic to diseases and full of insects, and there is no ventilation and high humidity, which makes them a fertile environment for the spread of Coronavirus.

Member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the liberated prisoner Ahmed Abu al-Saud said: “What the Israeli occupation commits against prisoners is a crime against humanity, especially with the spread of the Coronavirus.”

Abu al-Saud pointed out that the policy of medical negligence pursued by the Israeli occupation authorities against the prisoners who are now facing dangerous conditions that add to their difficult health conditions.

 A spokesman for the Organization of Prisoners’ Supporters Magdi Salem warned of the severe danger to the lives of the prisoners in light of the Israeli occupation’s intention to prevent measures to address the Coronavirus.

 Salem called on the international community to take action to save the prisoners’ lives and conduct medical examinations for them to ensure that they are not infected with the Coronavirus.

In turn, the families of the prisoners are concern of their children in the Israeli occupation detention camps and prisons.

The mother of the prisoner Hussam Al-Za’aneen said that the Israeli occupation commits a crime against the prisoners by continuing medical negligence and preventing sterilization, which constitutes a fertile environment for the spread of the Coronavirus.

O. al-Mohammad