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Annual Violations Report
measure in the hands of the occupation against the prisoners and their families.
The Israeli occupation breaches international covenants and laws regarding
treatment of prisoners, namely articles 76, 85, 91, and 92 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention. The articles state that all prisoners and detainees shall receive the
medical attention required by their state of health, be provided with adequate
infirmaries, and accommodated with every possible health safeguard conditions.
The occupation systematically influences the physical health of prisoners by the
use of torture that leaves prisoners with severe injuries and illnessess, as well
as the deliberate medical neglect seeing that the occupation stalls in providing
treatment and settles for minimal medical care.
Like prior years, 2015 witnessed hundreds of prisoners suffering from a variety
of illnesses; some were high-risk and others chronic, like the case of prisoner
Bassam Al-Sayeh who suffers from leukemia and cardiac atrophy. Addameer
documented 27 medical conditions during its visits to prison, and subsequently
filed the appropriate complaints, referring some of them to Physicians for
Human Rights.
The majority of prisoners receive treatment in prison clinics or are transferred to
the Ramleh prison clinic that does not meet the minimum standards of medical
care. Prisoners in Ramleh prison suffer from the occupation’s consistent stalling
in responding to their demands, and their complete isolation from the rest of the
Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement. Prisoner Rateb Hreibat told Addameer lawyer
that they also suffer from overcrowdedness in their small assigned rooms with
seven prisoners in wheel chairs, on top of inadequate bathroom facilities that do
not cater to prisoners with severe medical conditions. He also pointed out that
the prisoners cook meals in their own rooms due to the lack of a proper prison
kitchen.
Illness continues to haunt the prisoner after his release due to deliberate
medical neglect by the Israeli Prison Service that renders adequate treatment
impossible even following release. Former prisoners Ja’far Awad, 22, from
Hebron, and Ghassan Al-Rimwai, 27, from Beit Rima near Ramallah, passed
away shortly after their releases. Prisoner Fadi Al-Darbi, 30, from Jenin 17 , died
in prison, bringing the death toll of the Prisoners’ Movement martyrs to 209 18 by
the end of 2015.
A number of prisoners are at a high risk of developing severe illnesses and
death at any moment. The conditions in prisons and clinics, as well as tactics
17. Prisoner Fadi Al-Darbi served 10 years of a 14-year sentence in Israeli prisons. He suffered
severe brain hemorrhage and consequently slipped into coma and clinical death until he was
announced dead on Wednesday October 14th, 2015 in Soroka hospital in Beer Al-Sabe. Two
years prior, Al-Darbi suffered bleeding from his naval, and constantly suffered headaches and
nausea, without undergoing any medical tests to establish a diagnosis. Initial autopsy results
by the National Israeli Forensic Medicine Center (Abu Kabir) said the brain hemorrhage that led
to Al-Darbi’s death resulted from an unknown illness.
18. For exact numbers of Palestinian prisoners who died of medical neglect in Israeli prisons
(2007- 2013), see Table 10 in the appendix (page 21) of Addameer Violations Report of 2013.
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