Israeli negligence killed Palestinian inmate: Prisoners’ affairs committee

The Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs has called for an international investigation into the sudden death of a Palestinian prisoner.

The committee’s chairman, Issa Qaraqe, said on Sunday that Yasser Hamdouni’s death is a “heinous crime” and the direct result of Israel’s medical negligence.

He noted that despite his illness, Hamdouni was denied medical examinations and was only given painkillers by prison authorities. He had been suffering from recurrent shortness of breath, heart problems as well as agonizing pains in his left ear.

The 40-year-old, a resident of the occupied northern West Bank city of Jenin, suffered a stroke on Sunday morning and was pronounced dead upon arrival at a medical center in the city of Beersheba.

Following the announcement of his death, all Palestinian inmates held in Israeli prisons have started a three-day hunger strike.

Human rights groups say at least 207 Palestinians have lost their lives in Israeli prisons and detention centers, of whom 55 died as a result of medical negligence.

They say the Tel Aviv regime is resorting to the policy of medical negligence in a bid to torment Palestinian prisoners both physically and psychologically, and complicate their medical problems even after release.

Some 1,800 ill Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli jails, and 120 of them are in critical conditions, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

More than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in some 17 Israeli jails, many of them arbitrarily.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to voice outrage at their imprisonment without trial or charge as well as their prison conditions.