Ramallah, Occupied West Bank – A Palestinian prisoner, taken to hospital after falling into a coma on Thursday night, died in Israeli custody with two years of his remaining 12-year sentence.
Ahmad Abu Ali, 48, was pronounced dead on Friday morning at Israel’s Soroka hospital in the southern region of Naqab (Negev). According to the Palestinian Prisoners Association (PPS), Abu Ali suffers from chronic heart conditions and diabetes.
The Palestinian Prisoners Movement announced a “state of alarm” and some protest actions on Friday morning in response to Abu Ali’s death. These included returning all meals for a day, as well as closing prison blocks and refusing to cooperate with prison management during three days of mourning.
Abu Ali, a father of nine, was suddenly transported to the hospital on Thursday night after he went into a coma in his cell, PPS told Al Jazeera.
The group of prisoners said he died as a result of medical negligence by the Israeli prison authorities, which held Israel responsible for his death.
His health problems “were accompanied by a deliberate delay by the prison administration in providing him with the necessary treatment and medical examination and follow-up. monitor his health until this resulted in his death today,” PPS said in a statement. .
It said Abu Ali had health problems prior to his imprisonment in 2012, but these problems had “severely deteriorated” during his time behind bars due to a “general policy of medical negligence”. economic”.
Amany Sarahneh, PPS spokeswoman, said: “There is no proper care in prison.
“He wasn’t taken to the hospital for regular monitoring – that’s what all sick prisoners have. They have to wait months, sometimes years for serious medical and surgical check-ups, and sometimes that is done only after pressure from the prisoners themselves or their lawyers,” she told the BBC. Al Jazeera.
The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Detainees and Former Prisoners Affairs Committee said in a statement that it “condemns the crime of killing prisoner Ahmad Abu Ali”.
It is inconceivable that international silence will continue in the face of these systematic crimes.
Medical negligence
Tensions inside Israeli prisons have been running high in recent weeks and threaten to stir up an already fragile situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Collective sanctions have been in place for more than a week against at least 100 inmates in several prisons, including individual and collective solitary confinement, room raids and searches, beatings, confiscation All electrical appliances are prohibited from entering the canteen and family visits. .
The commission said that since 1967, at least 235 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons.
Palestinian officials and human rights groups have long noted and condemned “Israel’s policy of deliberate medical negligence.”
Human rights groups said in a joint report to the United Nations that specialists were infrequently present, with the exception of dentists, and that “over-the-counter pain relievers are used as a remedy for most health problems”.
In 2020, four Palestinian prisoners died in Israeli custody.
In November 2021, Palestinian prisoner Sami Umour, 39, died after a months-long necessary emergency surgery for serious heart problems he was suffering from.
The vast majority of Palestinians consider those held in Israeli prisons to be political prisoners who have been jailed for resisting the Israeli military occupation, which is not recognized by international law.
There are currently about 4,700 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, including 150 children and 34 women. This number includes about 600 prisoners with various diseases, as well as more than 20 people with cancer.
Meanwhile, 835 prisoners are in “administrative custody,” a controversial Israeli policy that allows it to detain Palestinians without charge or trial.
