Palestinian Prisoners’ Authority Warns: Two Prisoners in Israeli Jails in Critical Health Condition
The Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs warned on Sunday about the deteriorating health condition of two prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons.
The commission said in a statement that its lawyer visited prisoner Faisal Saba’aneh (65) from the town of Qabatiya south of Jenin, and Ali Abu Atiya (29) from Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank.
It explained that both prisoners are in serious health condition as a result of worsening detention conditions and deliberate medical negligence.
The commission noted that Saba’aneh has been held under administrative detention (without charge or trial) since October 25, 2023. He was transferred in early November from Nafha Prison to the Ramleh Prison Clinic after suffering a heart attack. He had reported symptoms of a heart attack days earlier and asked guards to be taken to a clinic, but his request was denied.
According to the commission, on the day Saba’aneh suffered the heart attack, a medic assaulted him before conducting tests. Saba’aneh also reported that food portions given to him were small from the beginning of his detention and had been decreasing further over the past two months.
Regarding prisoner Abu Atiya, the commission said he was arrested on November 4 from his workplace in Ramallah after being shot by an Israeli special unit, which caused fractures in his leg. He was transferred to Shaare Zedek Hospital in occupied Jerusalem, where he underwent two surgeries.
The commission held the Israeli prison authorities fully responsible for the deterioration of detainees’ health conditions, calling for urgent medical care, an end to abuse, and a halt to deliberate medical neglect aimed at slowly killing prisoners.
It noted that more than 9,300 Palestinian detainees, including women and children, are held in Israeli prisons, where they face torture, starvation, and medical neglect—conditions that have led to the deaths of dozens, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights reports.
Crimes against detainees have escalated alongside the ongoing genocidal war waged on the Gaza Strip for two years since October 2023, which has left over 70,000 Palestinians killed and 171,000 wounded, most of them women and children.