Israel has decided to deprive six ailing Palestinian prisoners of direly-needed medical care and place them under strict confinement.
The Israeli prison service has chosen to move those affected from Israel’s Ramleh Prison Hospital to central prisons.
The families have gathered in protest to the potential move and human rights organizations have warned that transferring the inmates to prisons without medical facilities amounts to deliberate killing, a Press TV’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip said.
“Our children are sick and dying from serious diseases in Israeli jails. These Zionist criminals should at least respect the sanctity of the holy month of Ramadan,” said Abu Ismail, a father of one prisoner.
“The move puts the lives of prisoners at risk due to lack of medical attention and maltreatment. Let me also add that even Ramleh Prison Hospital provided very little medical care to prisoners,” said Khalil abu-Shamallah from the Al-Damir human rights group.
The International Committee of the Red Cross turned down Press TV’s request for comments.
Israel occupied and later annexed the Palestinian territory of the West Bank in 1967 and sidestepped the international community’s subsequent refusal to recognize the move.
Ever since, Tel Aviv has detained over 700,000 Palestinians for varying lengths of time, our correspondent said.
There are around 9,000 Palestinians in Israeli detention. The families have for long been calling on human rights organizations and groups to intervene in order to secure the release of their loved ones, many of whom incarcerated without charge, trial and sentence.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees, nearly 200 Palestinian inmates have so far died in Israeli confinement, either due to medical negligence or under torture.
The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B’Tselem, says at least 40 Palestinian prisoners have suffered chronic illnesses like cancer, renal failure and strokes.
The Israeli central prisons fail to offer the constant medical care, required for the patients.
“This is just another criminal act against Palestinians,” said the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas’ minister of justice and prisoners, Mohammad Faraj al-Ghoul.
(Press TV)
