Israel is keeping a cancer-stricken Palestinian man in administrative detention despite his urgent need for medical attention, the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) said on Monday.

PPS said in a statement that 48-year-old Abdul-Baset Mutan, from the town of Burqa, east of Ramallah, has colon cancer and his health is constantly deteriorating.

Mutan was slammed with six months in administrative detention in July, only three months after his release from a previous six-month administrative detention sentence.

Following an appeal for his release to allow him to get treatment for cancer, an Israeli military court had reduced his sentence to four months. However, the six-month order was reinstated following an appeal by the military prosecutor.

The PPS accused Israel of slow murder of Palestinian prisoners, mainly the ill, through its medical negligence policy.

The group also urged the immediate release of Mutan, who is married with four children and who spent a total of nine years behind Israeli bars for his resistance to the occupation.