Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHR), a non-government organization, charged that Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike were not given proper medical attention, Israel Radio reported on Thursday. In a special report prepared ahead of next week’s Palestinian Prisoner Day, PHR claimed that the Prison Service (IPS) uses access to medical treatment as a way of applying pressure on prisoners.
PHR asserted that hunger strikers’ rights to optimal medical attention were consistently disrupted and as a result their health was unnecessarily endangered. The report called on the Health Ministry to place responsibility for providing inmates with medial treatment on an external body.
Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrate in the West Bank city of Nablus over the death of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, a long-term Palestinian prisoner who died of cancer inside an Israeli hospital, Nablus, West Bank, April 03, 2013 (Photo: Activestills)
Israel Radio said that the Prison Service responded that PHR-Israel does not have the resources to conduct an objective assessment of medical practices in prisons and added that the medical treatment given to prisoners is both professional and responsible.
Ahead of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day (April 17th) – and in light of the prolonged hunger strike currently waged by Palestinian Prisoner Samer Issawi, as well as recent reports detailing the deaths of several Palestinian security prisoners’ PHR releases an extensive report exposing a long list of medical ethics and human rights violations carried out by the IPS, specifically by prison medical practitioners, that endangered the lives of prisoners and detainees on hunger strike. According to PHR-Israel, the violations are a direct result of situating prison medical services under the auspices of the IPS, which operate largely out of security considerations.
The full PHR report (49 pages, in English):
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