"Israeli" Medics Endanger Palestinian Prisoners’ Lives, Issawi to "Israel": Waiting to Free My Memory from You

Local Editor

Human rights violations by medics working for "Israel's" prison service are endangering the lives of Palestinian inmates, especially hunger strikers.

The so-called "Physicians for Human Rights-"Israel"" strongly urged the transfer of responsibility for prisoners' health from the "Israel" Prisons Service in order to ensure detainees' health was put ahead of "security considerations".

"Medical ethics and human rights violations carried out by the IPS, specifically by prison medical practitioners... endangered the lives of prisoners and detainees on hunger strike," PHR said in a report.
The abuses it cited included "preventing independent physicians from examining and monitoring the medical condition of hunger strikers... and blocking the transfer of prisoners on hunger strike to civilian hospitals."

The deteriorating health of several prisoners on long-term hunger strike in "Israeli" jails prompted thousands of other prisoners to stage shorter-term fasts and sparked widespread protests on the Palestinian street.

It said the prison medical service "operates according to political and security considerations rather than medical considerations..."
The group claimed the responsibility for health issues should be transferred from the prisons service to the "Israeli" health ministry.

Meanwhile, in a related development Haaretz "Israeli" newspaper printed excerpts from a letter addressed to "Israelis" from long-term hunger striker Samer Issawi, who medics say is very close to death's door after refusing food since August.

"I am Samer al-Issawi, 'one of them Arabs' in your army's terms. That al-Makdissi you locked up for no good reason but that he decided to leave al-Quds to the city's outskirts," he said.
"Hear my voice, the voice of remaining time- mine and yours... Don't forget those you have incarcerated in prison and camps, between the iron doors that imprison your consciousness," he wrote.

"I'm not waiting for a prison guard to free me, I'm waiting for the one who frees you of my memory."
According to Haaretz, Issawi handed the letter to several "Israeli" women who had begun visiting Kaplan hospital in Rehovot where he being held.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org