A Palestinian ex-prisoner Wednesday night died in a Ramallah hospital after a long struggle with cancer, according to the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission.
The Commission announced in a press statement that Hussein Masalma, an ex-prisoner, died at al-Istishari Hospital in Ramallah due to complications resulting from Israeli medical negligence and procrastination at the time he was in custody.
Masalma, a resident of the Bethlehem-district town of al-Khader, was arrested by the Israel army in 2002 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
While in prison, Maslama’s medical condition deteriorated and he was subjected to medical negligence. He was suffering from pains for over two months during which the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) procrastinated in hospitalizing him, according to the Commission Director, Munqeth Abu-Atwan.
He added that IPS held Masalma in the Naqab Prison in southern Israel and subjected him to the systematic medical negligence, causing his condition to severely deteriorate. Upon his admission to the hospital, it became clear that Masalma had end-stage Leukemia.
After serving 19 years in Israeli prisons, Masalma was released on February 14, when his condition became too critical as Israel denied him urgently-needed medical care and Israel’s negligence caused him inevitable slow death.
He was first moved to the Israeli hospital of Hadassah in Jerusalem before being transferred to the Istishari Hospital in Ramallah on September 13.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) held the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for Masalma’s death as IPS maintains a systematic policy of medical negligence against Palestinian prisoners.
The PPS revealed that many Palestinian prisoners, especially those who have been held captive by Israel for more than 20 years, are facing various stages of tumors.
It urged legal and human rights groups, including the World Health Organization (WHO), to take serious and immediate action to ensure the release of all ailing Palestinians from Israeli prisons and dispatch an impartially, independently and neutrally constituted medical committee to examine the prisoners’ situation.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency