The Palestine Center for Prisoners Studies said that 16 prisoners in the Israeli prisons suffer from cancer of all kinds, without the Israeli prison administration providing them with adequate treatment for their health condition except for painkillers.

The director of the center, Riad Al-Ashqar, said in a report, a copy of which obtained by Safa, that prisoners with cancer are at risk due to their difficult health conditions and lack of adequate treatment.

Al-Ashqar stated that cancer is the first cause of the martyrdom of prisoners as a result of deliberate medical negligence inside the prisons of the occupation, pointing out that in 2020, the two prisoners: Kamal Abu Waer from Jenin and Saadi al-Gharabli from Gaza, died after suffering from cancer, stressing that the occupation refused to release them despite the seriousness of their illnesses.

He indicated that the harsh conditions inside the occupation prisons are the main reasons for prisoners to suffer diseases, and from time to time one of the prisoners is discovered to have cancer, the last of whom was the prisoner Hussein Al-Masalma, from Bethlehem, as he suffers from leukemia and his health condition is critical.

In the same context, Al-Ashqar pointed out that there are two elderly prisoners suffering from cancer, over the age of 70.

He called on those concerned with the issue of prisoners and all the media to shed light on the suffering of prisoners with cancer in the prisons of the occupation and to demand that they be released unconditionally before they died in prisons as a result of their infection with this deadly disease, especially in light of the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic in the prisons of the occupation.

He also called on all international institutions, especially the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders, to form an investigation committee to find out the reason behind the increase of cancer patients in the prison, and to work for their release as they are threatened with death at every moment due to the seriousness of their health conditions.

Source : Safa