News - Middle East: A Palestinian prisoners' advocacy group says the Israel Prison Service (IPS) is deliberately spreading diseases among Palestinian detainees and denying them medical care.

The Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs said in a statement that the practice is part of a broader pattern of systemic mistreatment inside Israeli detention centers.

The group added that the IPS persists in committing serious violations against approximately 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children.

These assertions are supported by recent testimonies collected by lawyers and human rights advocates.

According to one testimony, Hassan Imad Abu Hassan, a prisoner from the town of Yamoun, located west of Jenin, has been suffering from scabies for more than three months.

He got the disease after Israeli guards compelled him to rest on the bed of an infected inmate on the first day of his detention.

Another inmate, Alaa Al-Adham, hailing from Beit Ula town, is said to have developed serious skin conditions, characterized by intense itching and sensitivity in his thighs, all while not receiving any medical care.

Bilal Amr, a detainee from Dura, located south of al-Khalil, is presently incarcerated in Ofer Prison near Ramallah is experiencing chronic back and foot pain because of implanted platinum rods that were utilized to stabilize fractures.

Despite numerous appeals, he has been denied medical care.  Additionally, Amr is also experiencing considerable vision loss.

Israel keeps Palestinian inmates under deplorable conditions without proper hygienic standards. Palestinian inmates have also been subject to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.

Human rights organizations say Israel continues to violate the rights granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention and international laws. 

According to the Palestine Detainees Studies Center, around 60 percent of the Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails suffer from chronic illnesses. Due to the severity of their conditions, many have died in detention or shortly after their release.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express outrage at their illegal detention.

Source: Press TV