Category: Gaza - Page 39 - International Solidarity Movement

Gaza rallies in support of critically ill prisoner

9th February 2014 | The Electronic Intifada, Joe Catron | Gaza City, Occupied Palestine

Umm Muhammad, the mother of critically ill prisoner Ibrahim Bitar, with two of his neices at a weekly sit-in. She hasn’t seen her son in more than three months. (Joe Catron)

Sit-ins to support Palestinian prisoners — held every week since 1995 in the courtyard of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Gaza office — have recently been followed by rallies outside for Ibrahim Bitar, a sick detainee in Israel’s Nafha prison.

“We’ve garnered internal support for my brother, and created this popular campaign,” Ibrahim’s brother Mamdouh said last week. “It started within our family. Many of my friends participate in it. It’s a symbol of all the sick detainees.”

Through the Popular Campaign to Save the Life of the Captive Patient Ibrahim Bitar, the family has organized eight of the rallies, he said.

“All the funding is personal,” he added. “It comes from our own pockets.”

Ibrahim Bitar, now 32, was a fighter in Fatah’s Abu al-Arish Brigades. Israeli forces captured him on 7 August 2003.

“He was injured by the Israelis in his right eye during clashes,” Mamdouh said. “He was transferred to Egypt for treatment. The Israelis let him go to Egypt. During his return to Gaza, they detained him at the Rafah border.”

A military court sentenced him to 17 years, although Mamdouh said the prosecution had initially asked for a life sentence.

At the family’s house in Khan Younis, a town in southern Gaza, Mamdouh flicked through folders on his laptop. The campaign’s graphic designer, he showed the logos and posters he has created for it. He also collects photos of rallies for his brother, in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Illness remains a mystery

Despite news reports on Ibrahim’s medical condition, his illness remains a mystery, at least to his family.

“They aren’t giving his family the proper diagnosis,” he said. “We still don’t know the exact disease he has. First, they claimed he was suffering from leukemia. They gave him medication for three years. Then, they found out he didn’t have it and stopped his treatment.

“Finally, they told him he had colon cancer. They gave him cortisone. Now he takes 15 types of medicine per day.”

Mamdouh recited a list of his brother’s ailments: chronic anemia, Crohn’s disease, rheumatism and a tumor on his back which was recently removed by surgery.

“We don’t have any details about the surgery,” Mamdouh said. “We only know that it was conducted. He still bleeds from it.”

Ibrahim’s mother, Umm Muhammad, said Israel’s occupation policies had limited her family’s contact with him.

“I haven’t been allowed to visit him for three months now,” she said. “We have gotten no messages or letters except through the lawyers. When other prisoners are released, they come visit us to tell us about his condition and send his regards.”

Three goals

Their family’s campaign has three goals, according to Mamdouh.

“The aim is for Ibrahim to be released because of his health condition,” he said. “The second is for a health committee to have access, to find out his condition and give him the proper medication. Finally, we want the release of all the sick prisoners.”

By most official accounts, Bitar is one of at least 180 detainees in critical condition — including 25 with cancer — among roughly 1,400 sick prisoners.

“This number is the figure used by Palestinian groups dealing with the issue,” said Osama Wahidi, a spokesman for the Hussam Association, a prisoners’ society in Gaza. “But if you research among prisoners, you will find a higher number. This is the one registered in the files of the Israel Prison Service and humanitarian associations.”

Because of his family’s efforts, Bitar’s detention has emerged as a flashpoint for the families of sick prisoners in general. When crowds gather outside the Red Cross during the weekly rallies, signs depicting other prisoners mix with those Mamdouh has designed for Ibrahim.

“If every Palestinian detainee’s family did like Bitar’s, it would be a turning point for the issue of detainees,” Wahidi said. “There would be no need for the associations. And it would mount great pressure against Israel, more effective than the work of all the Palestinian factions.

“What they are doing is very helpful for everyone. They are trying to highlight him as a symbol of the issue of sick detainees.”

Broad support

The living room of Nahid al-Aqraa’s home in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood is decorated with posters of his image issued by Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Fatah.

Al-Aqraa, a fighter for the Popular Resistance Committees’ al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, hails from none of these organizations. But their paraphernalia offers a visible reminder of the broad, strong support he and other sick detainees attract in Palestine.

Like Ibrahim Bitar, Nahid al-Aqraa was captured by Israeli forces while returning to Palestine from medical treatment in Egypt. They detained him on 28 July 2007, at the Allenby Bridge between Jordan and the occupied West Bank, when the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip was closed.

A military court sentenced him to three life sentences.

“I visited him for the first time since his detention very recently,” his wife Jahadir said. “His father and mother live in the West Bank, but his children and I live in Gaza. His parents have been able to visit him. For me and our children, it has been impossible.”

The al-Aqraas have three daughters and a son. Israeli forces have not allowed two of his daughters, aged 12 and 15, to visit him since his detention. “I send him voice messages through a radio station, and written messages through the ICRC,” 15-year-old Nisma said in June last year.

Under the current occupation policy, their son Raed, who turned ten in December, has not been able to see his father since the family’s first visit either.

Visits blocked

For more than five years between June 2007 and August 2012, Israeli forces had blocked all visits to detainees by family members in the Gaza Strip.

Israel ended this comprehensive ban as part of an agreement to settle the mass Karameh (“Dignity”) hunger strike in April 2012, but continues to bar categories of relatives, including children who have reached the age of ten, from traveling through the Erez checkpoint to its prisons.

“Before I was allowed to visit my husband, both the older girls started crying,” Jahadir said. “I threatened them that if they kept crying, I wouldn’t go. They said no, I should go, even if they couldn’t.”

“My daughter Nada was very upset that she couldn’t hug her father, since she is over the age of eight,” she added. “It was the first time she had ever seen him.”

Another occupation policy bans physical contact between detainees and their children who, like Nada, have turned eight.

“When we saw him, Nada started crying and asking to stay with her father,” Jahadir said. “I told her it was up to the Israelis, not me.”

Now 44, al-Aqraa is one of 18 sick detainees held permanently in the Ramle prison clinic. In June, he and another Ramle detainee, Mansour Muqada of Salfit in the West Bank, undertook a dramatic protest when they swallowed potentially lethal quantities of pills.

A letter they sent to Mahmoud Abbas, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority’s leader, protested their exclusion from prisoner releases negotiated with Israel by both thePalestine Liberation Organization and Hamas.

“Death has become easier”

“We were ignored in the Shalit deal [a prisoner exchange agreement in 2011], and we don’t want current talks to ignore us too,” they wrote. “Death has become easier than living with sickness aggravated in our bodies” (“Ministry: Two sick prisoners attempt suicide,” Ma’an News Agency, 6 August 2013).

Their attempt, along with a subsequent hunger strike by Ramle prison clinic detainees, led to slightly improved medical treatment, Wahidi said.

Ramle prisoners have threatened additional hunger strikes, most recently in November (“Ailing Palestinian prisoners threaten hunger strike over lack of treatment,” Al-Akhbar, 25 November 2013).

Sick detainees in other prisons have done so as well (“Sick prisoners in Israeli jails threaten to start hunger strike,” Ma’an News Agency, 28 December 2013).

Health deteriorates

Meanwhile, Nahid al-Aqraa’s condition has continued to deteriorate.

“He has inflammation in his legs,” his wife said. “Parts of both were amputated. The first was in Gaza, before his detention. The second was inside the Israeli jails. The Egyptians did some surgery on it, but it didn’t succeed.”

“While I visited him, he didn’t want me to know he had problems. He just said he had a little inflammation and tried to hide his second amputated leg. But his lawyer told me the truth.”

Both families said that Ibrahim Bitar and Nahid al-Aqraa were not receiving proper treatment.

“Many lawyers have met Ibrahim,” Mamdouh Bitar said. “They have told us his condition is in the terminal stages.

“The bleeding from his surgery still has not been treated. Many times, they have taken him to the Ramle prison clinic or Assaf Harofeh hospital, then sent him back to the prison the same day under the pretext that there are not enough beds in the hospital.”

“The Israelis delayed his medical treatment,” Jahadir said about her husband Nahid. “They could have cured him if he had the proper medication. But he didn’t.”

“We don’t trust Israel”

Last year claims of Israeli medical negligence that followed the deaths two sick Palestinian detainees, Maysara Abuhamdia and Hassan al-Turabi, sparked protests across the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Addameer, an advocacy organization for Palestinian prisoners, argued that al-Turabi’s death on 5 November was “the direct result of the Israel Prison Service policy of medical negligence which is being practiced against all Palestinian political prisoners and detainees.”

The organization’s statement also said that, “Since 1967, 52 Palestinian political prisoners have died as a result of medical negligence, with al-Turabi being the third prisoner to die in 2013 alone” (“Occupation is solely responsible for the death of Palestinian political prisoner,” 5 November 2013).

“We’re not asking the Israelis to only give them the proper medication,” Wahidi said. “They need their freedom. We don’t trust the Israel Prison Service to give them the right treatment.”

Joe Catron is a US activist in Gaza, Palestine. He co-edited The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange. Follow him on Twitter @jncatron.

Madleen Kolab, Gaza’s only fisherwoman

9th February 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

I have seen her standing there more then once, at the edge of the port, looking out over the boats in the harbor and then towards the horizon. And for a short second, I have seen myself, when as a child I took my bicycle down to the harbor just to stand at the pier and gaze, for a long, long time, at the boats that disappeared beyond the horizon, and wonder what was beyond that line. And I have briefly asked myself if she does the same. But she is not a child, she is a young, adult woman. A strong woman.

I asked a good friend to arrange a meeting with Madleen Kolab, 19 years old and Gaza’s only fisherwoman, for an interview. Later, she would reveal this was only to tell me face to face tell me that she does not give interviews. For almost two years, she has declined all requests from journalists because they, as she says, only writes for their careers. But she decided to make an exception when she recognized me and knew that I was involved in the rebuilding of Gaza’s Ark, and thus in work for Palestine. Her firm look told me that she was serious and I felt honored, but also a little embarrassed, and was grateful that I could lower my eyes towards my notepad.

When she was six years old, she already accompanied her father when he was fishing, and she knew early what her coming profession would be. She loves her work. It gives her a sense of freedom to be on the sea, and she was careful to point out that nobody forced her to become a fisherman. Her rapt answers to my questions, that she never needed any consideration, unwavering eyes and lack of hesitation left no doubt or room for me to think otherwise. I could not doubt her word when she said that the other fishermen respect her as an equal colleague. It was only after I stressed that women all over the world find it difficult to break into an extremely male-dominated industry like fishing that she confessed she too has been fighting for her rights, and has been treated with prejudice, but that has now changed.

Madleen is the eldest of four siblings. She fishes with the younger of her two brothers on a hasaka, a small open boat, with an outboard motor. Earlier she had a type of boat she needed to paddle. Now she has the opportunity to go to deeper water and get somewhat better catches. Besides, it is safer. But she has been attacked by Israeli patrol boats, and she says it has been common for bullets to whiz around the boat. Once she feared she would be arrested, but when the Israeli soldiers discovered there was a woman on board the boat, they ordered her to instead head back to the harbor, obviously unsure of how they would deal with the unfamiliar situation. Madleen knows that will not save her forever, and she avoids the edge of the group of boats that go out, preferring to fight over the catch with others than try to get a bigger share for herself in more open water. But she also knows that when the Israeli military has decided to take a particular boat, it will also be the one they separate from the others.

I asked her about the escalation of violence. In January, thirteen attacks on fishermen were carried out, one at the six nautical-mile limit and the others three or less than three nautical miles from the coast. She knows from experience that if it is allowed to go out six miles, the Israeli navy keeps them within five miles, and when they were officially allowed to go only three miles, it was in reality only two. But Madleen believes they now attack so close to land because it is a high season and Israel wants to make it difficult for Palestinian fishermen to support themselves. This view is consistent with those of fishermen I have talked to after they were temporarily arrested and had their boats and gear confiscated. And the Israeli military know they can continue their abuses, since the world is not protesting.

But what would she do if there was no blockade? Would she leave Gaza? Madleen did not hesitate. She would stay. Palestine is her home. But she would fish further out, away from the overfished and shallow waters. And she wish that global society could make Israel stop the illegal and inhumane blockade. Fishermen themselves cannot. And as Madleen rightly points out, they have the right to fish in their own water. Right now, everything is like a dark dream, she continues; the future seems bleak. Still she hopes that one day they will be free from the blockade. And to hope is the only thing they can do.

Her phone rang. Someone wondered where she was. Madleen had never meant to be away for any length of time, and she asked me if I had any more questions. I took a few photographs of her and thanked her for her time. Before she left, she offered her help to launch Gaza’s Ark back into water. But I think I will see her again, standing there at the edge of the port. And it strikes me that I never asked that question, what she thinks about when she gazes towards the horizon.

A long, bloody January in Gaza

5th January 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Civil Defense crews work to clear the rubble left by an Israeli airstrike on 31 January. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)

It was a bloody beginning of the new year for the Palestinians of Gaza who, in addition to suffer from more and more difficult socioeconomic conditions, continued to face Israeli military violence.

During the month of January, there have been many attacks in the areas along the separation barrier surrounding the Gaza Strip, several incursions of Israeli military vehicles into Palestinian territory, precision air strikes, and almost constant attacks by the Israeli navy against fishermen.

The “bloody Fridays,” attacks against the youths of the popular resistance

Recently popular resistance has grown in the Gaza Strip. Every Friday hundreds of young Palestinians gather near the al-Shuhada cemetery, east of Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip. Sometimes they throw stones at Israeli soldiers and try to place Palestinian flags on the fence that separates the Gaza Strip from the land occupied by Israel in 1948. Israeli forces open fire indiscriminately at these unarmed young people, sometimes injuring or killing them. In January, two young Palestinians, included a child, were killed during the popular demonstrations. And at least 14 young Palestinians were wounded by gunfire in the course of these events. In the majority of cases, injuries to their lower limbs were reported.

On 2 January, Adnan Jamil Shehda Abu Khater, age 17, went to the al-Shuhada cemetery with some friends after school. The youths were about 500 meters from the fence. Israeli forces opened fire and Abu Khater was wounded by a bullet in the pelvic area. He died the following day.

Thaer Mohammed Rab’a. (Photo by Rosa Schiano)

On 3 January, in the same area, Israeli forces opened fire at a group of youths about 200 meters from the fence. Khaled Ibrahim Ouda, age 21, was injured by a bullet in the right leg. The same day, Thaer Mohammed Rab’a, age 25, was injured by a bullet in his left side while he was 300 meters from the fence. “They were competing in getting closer to the fence,” one of Thaer’s relatives said.

On 11 January, in the same area, the Israeli army opened fire at a group of youths who were close to the fence. Mahmoud Atef Mohammed Lubbad, age 22, was wounded by a bullet in the left leg. On January 24^th , the Israeli army opened fire at a group of youths who threw stones at the soldiers. Five young civilians were injured. Mo’aaz Munir Salman Ghabit, age 18), reported a moderate wound to his right thigh; Abdullah Mohammed ‘Abdullah ‘Awad, age 22, reported a moderate injury to his right hand and fracture; Salem Nafez Salem Abu Aser, age 21, reported a light injury to his right foot; Mohammed Naser Hasounah Abu Qamar, age 18, reported a light wound in the left arm; and Yehia Mahmoud Omer al-Jammal, age 20, reported a light wound to his back.

Belal Samir Ahmed ‘Aweidah, shortly before he was shot and killed by an Israeli military sniper. (Photo by Akram ‘Aweidah)

In the same day, a group of young Palestinians was gathering in an area north of Beit Lahia. They approached the border and throw some stones at the soldiers. Belal Samir Ahmed ‘Aweidah, age 19, from Beit Lahia, was killed instantly with a bullet to his chest. His mother described how her son was killed.

“We had lunch,” she said. “It was our last lunch. Then he dressed. I asked him: ‘Where are you going?’ ‘I will do a tour with some friends’, he said.”

Belal, along with other youths, was spending Friday afternoon taking photos near the fence and “looking at our occupied lands on the other side of the barrier,” his cousin Akram said. A sniper fired a bullet into his chest.

“I heard a bullet,” he said. “We ran away. Belal was running with me. He was running with the bullet in his chest. Then he told me, ‘Akram, Akram, I’m wounded,’ and fell on the ground.”

Akram showed us photos he had taken of Belal before he was killed.

On 31 January, the last Friday of the month, about six youths were injured close to the cemetery east of Jabalyia. Two of the wounded were hospitalized at Kamal Odwan hospital in Beit Lahia. Moaz Al Tlalqa, age 21, was wounded in the right thigh. The bullet caused a comminuted fracture.

“We want the end of the siege and we want to live like the other people in the rest of the world,” he said later. The second injured Palestinian, Mahmoud Muharram, age 24, had tried to reach the body of another wounded young man who was lying 20 meters from the fence. The soldiers told him to go away and to leave the body of the young man. Mahmoud refused. A soldier fired a bullet at his left leg.

“The soldiers took the Palestinian flag that we placed on the fence and stepped on it,” Mahoud said. Then he added: “This land was wet with blood more than water.”

In the courtyard of the hospital, several youths present Friday at the demonstration, included a young man injured the previous week, had gathered.

“Next Friday, I’m going to place the Palestinian flag over the fence,” one of them said.

“It’s dangerous,” an international activist said.

“Whatever is written in the sky, we will face it,” the young man replied.

Airstrikes and extrajudicial killings

In January, the Israeli air force carried out two attacks on agricultural and empty lands. Three attacks targeted Palestinian resistance sites. In one, a three-year-old child was injured by shards from the broken window of her house in Nuseirat. Two UNRWA schools and more than 20 houses were damaged in the same attack.

Extrajudicial assassination attempts are considered illegal under international law.

On 9 January, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a motorcycle rickshaw, or “tuk-tuk,” driven by two members of the military resistance east of Khan Younis. The two men were wounded and windows of the adjacent houses were damaged. A three-year-old child, Heba Abdullah al-Ghalban, was injured by shards of glass.

On 19 January, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a motorcycle driven by an activist of the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, in al-Saftawi street in the town of Jabaliya. The activist was seriously injured and a an eleven-year-old child was injured by shrapnel.

On 22 January, in another extrajudicial execution attempt, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a civilian car in Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip. Both passengers, Ahmed Mohamed Khalil al-Za’anin, age 21, a member of the resistance, and his cousin Mohammed Yousif Ahmed al-Za’anin, age 22, were killed.

A Civil Defense truck sits outside the site of an Israeli airstrike on 31 January. (Photo by Rosa Schiano) — (Photo by Rosa Schiano)

On 31 January, at about 2:40 am, Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes in Rafah Safena, north of Gaza City, and on a building near Sheikh Zayed, in the north of Gaza Strip. In the latter case, many animals bred in the bombed structure were killed. During the same period, Palestinian armed resistance groups have launched several rockets toward Israeli territory, and the Israeli Defense minister threatened a new military offensive if the Palestinian government in Gaza does not prevent the launch of rockets.

Aggression against fishermen

In January, the Israeli navy carried out at least 13 attacks against Palestinian fishermen during which fishermen were forced to leave their work. All the attacks occurred within three nautical miles, except for one within six nautical miles. Most of the attacks took place in waters off the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Three fishermen were captured, included a child. During the detentions, the fishermen were interrogated, asked for their personal information and about places and people in Gaza. Their boats were confiscated.

Incursions

Israeli military vehicles carried out several incursions and “leveling” operations on Palestinian agricultural lands. In several cases the army opened fire at farmers and other civilians in Khan Younis and Beit Hanoun, forcing them to leave the area. In one incident, a civilian was wounded in Beit Hanoun 300 meters from the fence.

Gaza children with terminal illness spend their final years under the siege

3rd February 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Epidermolysis bullosa is an exotic name for what is, in its most severe form, unusual, painful and fatal disease. It is caused by a deficiency of the protein that binds the two skin layers together, creating friction, blisters and open, slow-healing wounds. These blisters and erosions occur Even on internal mucous membranes. The wounds are similar to third degree burns, and children – victims of its most severe form will rarely be older than that – are also more prone to skin cancer. A cure does not exist.

In Daniela Riva’s apartment in Gaza City is a party, with cakes and cordiality. Some of the affected children are there, along with some siblings and their mothers. It is a merry atmosphere. They are playing, and there is some strife about whose turn it is to bowl with a Wii video game. One of the girls after a long, fascinated look at my red beard and blue eyes, borrows my notebook and draws a big heart. It takes her some time to fill it in.

They are unusually short, and have red sores on their faces. Their bodies have to put much effort into heal the wounds, as much as possible, and keeping the symptoms of the disease in check. Those at the party look six or seven years old. In fact, they are about ten years old. And they move stiffly, mainly as a consequence of all the bandages they wear – bandage that keep a special kind of layer in place to prevent their clothes from sticking in their wounds and allow them to live reasonably normal lives without the pain that any contact otherwise will cause – but their movements would be strained even without these bandages. Their stiff skin makes them turn their bodies simultaneously with their heads, and their fingers are becoming more and more hunched and rigid.

R – let us call her that – is the most active during the party. She is ten years with a catching smile, although it reveals her effected teeth and gums, and with a small hand, most similar to a human claw, she tries to get her hair in order.Her eyes reflect a curiosity. She is everywhere in the room and can’t sit still. But her breathing is strained, her voice is mostly a hiss and it’s hard for her to make herself heard. The disease also attacks her windpipe and throat. It is likely that her death will be caused by suffocation.

R know she will die. She knows she lives in constant proximity to death. That’s why she refuses to sleep with white sheets – it’s white sheets in which dead bodies are buried – and on a few occasions, when she had a cold and was barely able to breathe at all, asked to call a few friends to say goodbye. One of those she dialed was Daniela.

Daniela came to Gaza for the first time in 2008 to work in water and sanitation for an Italian NGO. She did not return to Italy until 2011. However, she did not spend all her time in Gaza, but traveled back and forth to Israel and the West Bank via the crossing at Erez. During the “Operation Cast Lead” military offensive, she was in Jerusalem. And it was when she returned after the war that she first saw a child, a boy about ten years old, with what appeared to be third degree burns.

She contacted Dr. Majdy Naim, at the al-Shifa hospital, who introduced her to other affected families. Together they advertised in newspapers and radio stations, and thus registered all in the Gaza Strip with the rare disease. Many of the parents had been unaware that there were more victims, but with Daniela’s help, they have now formed an association where they can get support and advice from each other, and through the association they seek assistance worldwide.

Her involvement with these children led her to stop working for the NGO that brought her to Gaza. Instead she got in touch with another, Debra Italy. They were so interested in what Daniela had to say that they made contact with a hospital in Rome, and in December 2012, she was back in Gaza with specialized surgeons who dilated the childrens’ esophaguses so they can eat normally, a procedure that needs to be done more than once during their lives. They also brought the special fabric that allows the children to live more functional lives, a product that cannot be found in the area.

The last time Daniela returned to Gaza, she brought a bag of this fabric. But it was not without difficulty. She was stopped by customs at the Cairo airport, where they requesteded a certificate from the Egyptian ministry of health allowing her to bring in medical materials. Without it, she had to pay ten percent of the value, which was $ 600, money she was promised to get back when she crossed the border to Gaza with the unopened bag. Of course she did not receive any money back in Rafah. But she got the material in, and it is needed. The bandages need to be changed every two to three days, a procedure that takes more than two hours, and between ten and fifteen layers are needed to cover the wounds, costing $75 to $125. The stock she brought will last 5-6 months. After that, the families can only hope that Daniela or someone else will enter with more.

R has one year left to live. Daniela has a dream to take her to Italy to let surgeons there assess if it is feasible to perform one last surgery in her throat, and to give her a nice final trip. I ask no more about it, suspecting that what she calls a dream is what most of us call a will, and I have seen what her will can achieve. Instead, I ask how come she is so self-sacrificing and continues year after year. She is now 36 years old, an age when most people are focused on their families and careers. It was a coincidence that made her start to work with children who have this disease, and as she explains, it just feels right to do it. She does not need any more reason than that.

In Gaza, remembering the sick Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails

2nd February 2014 | Resistenza Quotidiana, Sil | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

At this week’s Gaza sit-in in solidarity with political prisoners in Israeli jails, the focus was on the sick prisoners. The Palestinian political prisoners in need of medical care number about 1,000, and the lives of many are in danger because they are often denied necessary medical care.

“My son’s name is Ibrahim Al Goshen,” a woman said in the International Committee of the Red Cross courtyard. “Since after the hunger strike in October 2011, he has had pain in the legs and shoulders. He has an enlarged thyroid and high blood pressure, and sometimes falls into a coma for hours.”

“A year ago he had some tests, but they have not yet yielded the results,” she continued. “The only medicines they give him are painkillers and analgesics, paracetamol, and aspirin.”

“Ibrahim has been in prison for four years, and must serve another two and a half. He is 37 years old and has three children. We were able to visit him only three times, and only after the exchange with the soldier Shalit. We do not know which disease he has, but are sure he does not receive adequate care.”

Ibrahim is not the only one in his situation. Many witnesses report that too often the “cures” patients receive are limited to paracetamol and painkillers, which will not affect the causes of the disease. There are cases of untreated leukemia, prisoners suffering from cancer who are not receiving chemotherapy, persons who have contracted serious diseases like hepatitis due to poor hygienic conditions in prisons.

Other sick prisoners have died because of lack of medical care. Abu Hamdiyeh, for example, died in March 2013. In August 2012 had a very painful sore throat, which was treated only with painkillers. When he was finally taken to the Soroka hospital, his throat cancer had already spread to his spine. Hasan Turabi, arrested when he already had leukemia, stated he did not receive adequate medical care. He went to the clinic because he vomited blood, for which he received painkillers. Hasan was discharged on his deathbed. He died at age 22 on 5th November 2013.

Islam Abdo, media coordinator of the ministry of detainees in Gaza, cited the case of Yosri al-Masri, 31 years old, who was arrested ten years ago and sentenced to 20 years.

“This morning we went to visit his family,” Abdo said. “Yosri has thyroid cancer that has already reached the lymph nodes. A month and a half ago, they removed the thyroid gland, but did not give him the medicines to replace the hormones it produces, only painkillers. He should have chemotherapy, he should receive care that does not receive, so as a kind of protest he refused to take paracetamol and painkillers that were administered in place of the medicine he needed.”

“While I was in the intensive care unit, after the operation, my hands and feet had been cuffed to the hospital bed,” Yosri said in November. “I was guarded by 3 jailers, and whenever I wanted to go to the bathroom or to take shower they had to take the permission from Nafha intelligence officer.”

Motassem Radad suffers from acute intestinal inflammation that causes bleeding and severe pain. His condition deteriorated after a cortisone injection, which caused difficulty in the movement of his hands and legs. Thaer Halahla has contracted hepatitis C in Ashkelon prison, following a dental operation. He was transferred to a medical clinic in December. Thaer was held under administrative detention. After 77 days of a hunger strike, which contributed to the deterioration of his health condition, he was released on 5th June, 2012 and re-arrested 10th April, 2013. The list could go on, but would become repetitive. These are only examples.

1,000 patients are waiting for medical treatment in the Zionist jails. 25 prisoners suffer from cancer. 207 detainees have died since 1967, including 54 from medical negligence. Under international law, no Palestinian should be arrested and imprisoned by the occupying power in territories occupied in1948 In the Zionist jails, prisoners are routinely subjected to torture, forbidden family visits, held under administrative detention, without charge or trial.

Ibrahim al-Bitar, age 33, was arrested in 2003 while traveling through the Rafah crossing back from Egypt, where he had gone to receive medical treatment for an eye, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Islam, at the ministry of detainees, said that his interrogation and torture have worsened his medical situation, and now has problems with his stomach and intestines. Rami, who was released a month ago after being held in Israeli prisons since before the Oslo agreements, said that Ibrahim is a friend of his. Part of Ibrahim’s intestine was removed, but his health is still precarious because he has not received the necessary treatment since the operation.

“The last time I saw him he was very ill, but had not yet lost his strength and hope,” Rami said. “He asked me to talk about his case and the other sick prisoners. He asked me to create pressure for them to receive the treatment they need. When he can, he calls me on the phone from jail to remind me to do so.”