Local Editor

Official doctors from the Palestinian Authority and Jordan have announced that Palestinian Martyr prisoner Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh had been stricken with cancer for years and was treated with improper medication.

""Israeli" doctors did not stop Abu Hamdiyeh's cancer from spreading, although he had been complaining of bodily pains since 2003," Palestinian Prisoner Affairs Minister Issa Qaraqe said Thursday as he announced the results of an autopsy.
The 64 year old former Fatah member succumbed to oesophageal cancer on Tuesday. Thousands of Palestinians , reported to include all factions, poured into the streets of al-Khalil for his funeral.

Prison authorities disclosed his diagnosis in February, and said they tried to secure his release shortly after.
A statement from the "Israeli" Prison Service after his death said: "The prisoner was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in February and was under the medical supervision of experts at the hospital. About a week ago, after being diagnosed as terminal, the IPS appealed to the release committee to secure his early release, a process which had been started but not yet concluded."

Lawyers and relatives report that prison doctors ran biopsy tests on him in 2012 but refused to inform him of his disease.
"Instead of providing him with the correct treatment, the doctors gave him flu shots that caused severe pain in his chest, which he could hardly sleep after," said Abu Hamdiyeh's lawyer al-Alami to Electronic Intifada.

His sister Itidal told the online magazine she visited him in January, one month before his official diagnosis, and found that his voice was completely gone.
Angered by Abu Hamdiyeh's death, the entire Palestinian prisoner population refused their morning meal Wednesday, according to a statement by the IPS, and the Palestinian Authority announced a three-day general strike across the West Bank.
Meanwhile, young Palestinians in al-Khalil in the southern West Bank continued for the third consecutive day to clash with "Israeli" troops.
A Maan reporter said a CNN cameraman was shot and injured by a live bullet. Additionally, 21 Palestinians were hit by rubber-coated bullets, while dozens of others suffered from tear gas which the soldiers fired extravagantly.
The fiercest clashes took place in Bab al-Zawiya neighborhood in the center of al-Khalil after the funeral procession of Abu Hamdiyeh.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org