Relatives of the late Maisara Abu Hamdiyeh spoke with RT about his condition when he was still alive, at the beginning of March, emphasizing the severity of his physical condition.
“We were sitting next to him, barely hearing his voice. He can’t eat, he has no appetite. We fed him, forced him to eat to stay alive somehow. Seven months ago, his condition began to worsen, and he addressed the prison administration to allow him a medical examination,” his wife indicated.
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Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh
Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh died today shackled to his hospital bed, the latest victim of Israel’s cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment of Palestinian detainees.
Suffering from cancer since at least August 2012, he was not told of his diagnosis – or given any treatment other than painkillers and flu injections – until March 2013, when he was finally commenced on chemotherapy. This treatment might have had some chance of helping him if it had been administered early enough – but it did not begin until the cancer had already metastasised to his spine…then it was suspended ‘for the Jewish holidays,’ according to his lawyer Rami al-Alami.
Such blatant breaches of both medical ethics and human rights norms are both scandalous, and scandalously common.
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Occupied Ramallah – Addameer and Al-Haq are gravely concerned about the deteriorating health conditions of four Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli detention centres. In particular, the condition of Samer Al-Issawi, who has been on partial hunger strike since 1 August 2012, has reached a critical level. Israeli authorities have been pressurising Samer to accept a deal that would see him forcibly transferred to the Gaza Strip in return for him ending his strike. Samer has repeatedly refused to accept any such deal, which is a blatant violation of the prohibition of the forcible transfer of the protected Palestinian population. He was scheduled to have a court hearing three days ago; however, this was postponed until May. Unless there is a positive change in the immediate future, this postponement is tantamount to a death sentence for Samer.
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The legend Samer Issawi entered his 251 day on hunger strike for Freedom, his health is in critical condition NOW!!
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Today ADC sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry requesting an investigation into the case of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat who died in Israeli prison on February 23, 2013. ADC is particularly concerned that funds made available by US military aid to Israel were used by the Israeli security units behind this gross human rights violation.
Although initial Israeli reports claimed Jaradat died from a heart attack, a recent autopsy conducted by Palestinian officials revealed that Jaradat was tortured to death. Jaradat was killed a mere six days after his initial arrest on February 18th. Senior United Nations officials have voiced concern about his detention and death and called for an independent and transparent investigation.
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Send to KindleFD Editor’s Note: Just think: Shaker Aamer has been in isolation even longer than this! Please go and sign the petition, write Obama, do whatever you can do to help. Tell others about him and ask them to take action. He said himself that he’s dying in Guantanamo. And lets all pray for this man as well.
- By Ma’an News
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — A Palestinian man held in solitary confinement by Israel for two years is losing his ability to recall language and has speech impairments, a lawyer who visited him in jail said Sunday.
The lawyer for the Palestinian prisoners society said Dirar Abu Sisi, an engineer from Gaza, is suffering from a number of health problems in his isolation cell.
Abu Sisi disappeared in February 2011 while traveling on a train in Ukraine and Israel later announced that it was holding him in a southern Israeli jail.
He was the only prisoner excluded from a May 2012 deal with Israeli authorities to end solitary confinement, according to prisoners rights group Addameer.
The deal, which included several terms to improve prisoners conditions, was made to end a mass hunger strike campaign launched by Palestinian prisoners.
The order to keep Abu Sisi in isolation was renewed for another six months on Nov. 1, 2012.
The prisoners society lawyer said Abu Sisi told him prison guards were implementing other punitive measures.
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Staff from Addameer inspect their Ramallah offices after a raid by the Israeli army, 11 December 2012. (Issam Rimawi / APA images)
As protests continue across Palestine in support of thousands of prisoners languishing in Israeli jails, local organizations say that the Israeli authorities have increased their pressure on Palestinian human rights defenders.
“This is a way to
the principle of solidarity between the Palestinian people and the Palestinian prisoners, and the case of the Palestinian prisoners in the conscience of the Palestinian people,” said Mourad Jadallah, a legal researcher with Addameer, a Ramallah-based prisoners support group.
In October 2012, Israeli soldiers arrested Jadallah’s colleague, Ayman Nasser, from his home in the West Bank village of Saffa, near Ramallah, in the middle of the night. He was taken to Jerusalem’s infamous Russian Compound prison — Moskobiyyeh in Arabic — and kept in isolation for weeks of interrogation.
Addameer reported that he was held in painful, stress-inducing positions during interrogation sessions that sometimes lasted for more than 20 hours, was barred from sleeping, psychologically intimidated and frequently denied access to a lawyer and to proper medical care.
The Israeli authorities eventually accused Nasser of organizing and participating in demonstrations as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and recruiting others to join the group.
Through the use of torture, the Israelis also coerced witnesses — other Palestinian prisoners held in Israel — to incriminate Nasser. These witnesses later testified in front of an Israeli military court that they gave false statements (“The Shin Bet’s dream investigation,” Haaretz, 10 February).
Send to KindleSix days after Arafat Jaradat was arrested by the Israeli army and the Shin Bet (Israeli intelligence agency), he was dead. Between the day of his arrest, February 18th, and the day of his death, February 23rd, his lawyer, Kamil Sabbagh, met with Arafat only once: before a military judge, the Kishon interrogation center of the Shin Bet.
Sabbagh said that when saw Jaradt, he was terrified and had said he was in extreme pain after being beaten and forced to sit in stress positions with his hands tied behind him.
When they announced
the death of Arafat, the Israeli Prison Service said the Palestinian, who leaves a widow and two children, died of cardiac arrest. However, the autopsy did not find any subsequent blood clot in his heart. In fact, the autopsy concluded that Arafat, who turned 30 years old this year, had enjoyed good cardiovascular health.The final exam found that, in fact, the cause of death was that Arafat had been beaten with repeated blows against his chest and body, and had a total of six broken bones in the spine, arms and legs, his lips were lacerated and his face severely injured.
The class of injuries sustained by Arafat before he died at the hands of the Israeli Shin Bet is common to many Palestinians who pass through Israeli prisons. According to the Addameer organization for prisoners’ rights, since 1967, a total of 72 Palestinians were killed as a result of torture and 53 due to medical negligence. Less than a month before the death of Jaradat, Ashraf Abu Dhra died while in the custody of Israel, in a case that the organization considers the direct result of medical malpractice.
The legal impunity of the Shin Bet and its torture techniques have been well established. Between 2001 and 2011, 700 Palestinians sent complaints to the State Attorney’s Office, but none were criminally investigated.
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The family of Arafat Jaradat mourn in the West Bank village of Sair.
(Mamoun Wazwaz / APA images)
Arafat Jaradat died in Israel’s Megiddo prison yesterday after being interrogated by Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet, also known as the Shabak. After his arrest at midnight on 18 February, during which he was beaten, Jaradat was held at al-Jalame detention and interrogation center before being transferred to Megiddo prison.
Jaradat was arrested under the suspicion that he was involved in stone-throwing that had wounded an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank, reported Ma’an News Agency, citing a Shin Bet statement.
Today, Jaradat’s father identified his son’s body.
The Palestinian minister in charge of prisoners’ affairs, Issa Qaraqe, called for “an international investigation into his death, that may have resulted from torture,” Ma’an reported.
Complaints of sharp pain
Al Jazeera English reports that an Israel Prisons Service spokesperson said that the death was probably caused by a cardiac arrest (an autopsy report contradicts the Israeli authorities’ findings — see the update below). During an interrogation session on Thursday, Jaradat was examined “numerous times” by a doctor and no health problems were found so the procedure continued, said the Shin Bet in a statement cited by Ma’an.
But the Shin Bet also stated that Jadarat suffered from health problems prior to his arrest, including back aches and injuries in his leg and stomach, sustained from a rubber bullet and a tear gas canister, according to Ma’an.
However Jaradat’s family told Ma’an that Arafat was in good health before his arrest and did not suffer from any diseases or health conditions.
According to the International Middle East Media Cente, Jaradat’s attorney Kamil Sabbagh said that Jaradat had “complained to him of sharp pain in the back and other parts of his body due to ongoing and extensive interrogation.”
Sabbagh represented Jaradat during a court session held at al-Jalame on Thursday. Jaradat told his lawyer that he was interrogated for several hours each day. Although he repeatedly complained of sharp pain, he was never seen by a physician. Sabbagh told the military judge about the complaints made by Jaradat. The judge instructed the prison administration to grant him the needed medical attention.
Addameer added in a statement today calling for international inquiry into Jaradat’s death:
Mr. Kamil Sabbagh, Arafat’s lawyer from the Ministry of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoner’s Affairs who defended him in a court hearing at Jalameh on 21 February 2013, reported that Arafat was subjected to torture during his interrogation, including being forced to sit for long hours in stress positions with his hands shackled behind his back. Arafat suffered from pain in his back, and therefore, during the court hearing on 21 February, his lawyer requested that he be given a health examination due to the severe conditions that he was detained under. Despite this, the judge ruled to extend his detention for a further twelve days, reducing the prosecution’s request of a fifteen day extension by only three days. The judge also ordered that the medical officials in the interrogation center examine his psychological and physical health and to report the results to the Shin Bet and the court. Two days later, on Saturday 23 February 2013, it was learned that Arafat Jaradat had passed away in a special section for the Shin Bet in Megiddo Prison, under conditions which are still unclear.
Arafat’s family stated that their son was heavily beaten by the IOF [Israeli occupation forces] during his arrest at the entrance of Sa’eer and that he was screaming from the difficult torture he was subjected to. The martyr’s wife, Ms. Dalal Ayayda, added that the intelligence officer that accompanied the IOF during the arrest requested that they allow[ed] him to return to his home for a moment to say goodbye to his wife and children. She considers this to be an indicator that his death in the prison was premeditated.
Jaradat’s death has sparked a mass hunger strike among the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails. A spokesperson for Israel’s Prison Service told Ma’an that approximately 4,500 prisoners in Israeli jails are refusing food from prison authorities.
Thirty-year-old Jaradat is from the Palestinian village of Sair near Hebron in the occupied West Bank. He is married and has two young children, a three-year-old and a two-year-old. Jaradat’s wife is expecting their third child in June.
Human rights defender under interrogation by Jaradat’s torturers
British-Danish security giant G4S provides security equipment to both al-Jalame and Megiddo prisons, according to a March 2011 report on the firm by the watchdog group Who Profits.
Stop the Wall youth coordinator and human rights defender Hassan Karajah, who was arrested in a late-night raid on his family’s home last month, is being interrogated at Jalame detention center by the same investigators involved in Jaradat’s case, according to the human rights group Addameer, which stated on Facebook today:
The Jalameh Military Court extended the detention and interrogation of activist and human rights defender HASSAN KARAJAH for 5 more days.His next hearing will be on Thursday 28 February 2013 in Ofer Military Court. The prosecution requested that his detention be extended eight days, which was reduced to 5 days.
Addameer’s lawyer Samer Sama’an confirmed that Hassan has been subjected to long interrogations by the Shin Bet security forces in Jalameh, and that he is being interrogated by the same investigators that were involved in the martyr Arafat Jaradat’s case.
Samer Sama’an also noted that the court was originally to be held in Salem Court, but at the last moment was transfered to Jalameh Court, meaning his family was barred from entering the court and seeing Hassan. Hassan’s family has only seen Hassan once since his arrest 31 days ago on 23 January 2013.
Rising number of Palestinian prisoners
Meanwhile, Palestinian prisoners’ rights organization Addameer published its 1 February monthly detention report, which notes the following trends:
Update on autopsy report
The Palestinian rights group Al-Haq tweeted the findings of the autopsy report on the cause of Arafat Jaradat’s death, which contradicts Israel’s claim that Jaradat died of a heart attack:
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Palestinian relatives and friends mourn over the death of Arafat Jaradat, who died in an Israeli prison, after his body was handed over by Israeli authorities on February 24, 2013 at a hospital in the West Bank city of Hebron. (AFP)
Arafat Jaradat’s autopsy showed torture resulting from fractures in his body and bruises in his face, while his heart was in good condition, said Issa Qaraqaa, the minister in charge of prisoner affairs, citing a Palestinian doctor who took part in the autopsy. “These results prove Israel killed him,” Qaraqaa told a news conference.
Jaradat died on Saturday in an Israeli jail from what prison authorities initially said appeared to have been a heart attack.
The 30-year-old man from Sair near Hebron in the West Bank was arrested last Monday for alleged involvement in a November 2012 stone-throwing incident which injured an Israeli, according to Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence service.
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