Written statement submitted by Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture – HRC 29th session – NGO statement

Written statement* submitted by the Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture, a non-governmental organization in special consultative status

The Secretary-General has received the following written statement which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31.

[21 May 2015]

* This written statement is issued, unedited, in the language(s) received from the submitting non^­governmental organization(s).

Certificates of ill prisoners in the Prisons of the Israeli Occupation

The tale of prisoner “Al-Kadi” started in mid-2013 when felt with severe pains in his tummy in Eishel Jail. After testing him, the prison doctor gave him a medicine without diagnosing him seriously. Consequently, he began to fell with dizziness, and then started vomiting. After taken to Soroka Hospital, the doctors assured he had a severe hepatitis. The prisoner “Thaer Aziz Halaila witnessed that Al-Kadi had this infection deliberately by the doctor of the prison authorities. Thaer said that Al-Kadi suffered a hard ailment during investigation in Askalan Jail, and he felt with pains in his liver from the right side and other pains in the back and teeth, so he was taken to the prison clinic where he had blood and tooth tests. While treating him, the doctor used unsterilized tools. Thaer said: “I saw on him traces of blood.” Later, it was shown he had infection in his liver due to the irresponsible actions in the clinic. In Askalan Jail, he was given 250 pills in one month.”

The certificate of the ill prisoner Ali Shalalda

The liberated prisoner Ali Shalalda (62 years old), described Al Ramlah Jail hospital where he spent 15 years of his 20 year sentence in arrest that it is really like a refrigerator for keeping the prisoners and insulting their dignity.

In that jail he never saw a “cold moment”, but he saw death by naked eyes since five prisoners were martyred silently in the hospital; no care, no suitable medication.

He clarified that in that hospital there are about 20-30 prisoners who suffer from chronic illnesses, partial paralysis, leg handicap in addition to tens of prisoners who come daily to the hospital to emergent treatment for some normal infections. The hospital of the prison is supervised by a practitioner and one nurse, and most times the doctor gives relief drugs for all diseases and pains in the time and way of his own. Shalalda added: “They don't handle you as a sick prisoner, but as a dangerous security prisoner.” They chain the prisoner when he wants to get outside the hospital to complete his treatment.

The certificate of the Akram Al-Rikhawi

The liberated prisoner Akram Al-Rikhawi, 42 years old, had spent 8 years in Al-Ramlah Hospital before he was released in February 2013. He was suffering from asthma, diabetes, and cholesterol in his blood. He witnessed the martyrdom of five sick prisoners who were in that hospital. Akram witnessed the period he lived there and the hard conditions that surrounded the prisoners.

He says: witnessing death and hearing the sound of pains surrounded every corner of that place which is called “Hospital”. The prisoners there have been exhausted by infections and carelessness and are living in worrying conditions and continous pain since their spirits, bodies and hygiene rights are assaulted and violated. He say: The hospital of Al-Ramllah Jail is not even a clinic.

This hospital is not different from other prison sections; they are similar in oppression and violation of humanity. In the room, 5m length and 6 m width, there are ten prisoners who use this room as a kitchen, bathroom… we were sleeping on the sounds of the pains and cries of those sick people, among them were paralyzed.

The doctor who monitors the prisoners is an unsuccessful scholar who failed at the academy in “Israel”. He works a security and intelligent officer who lacks any humanity. He tries to blackmail the patients when he offers to cure them in return to recruit them. Yep he trades with human's pain, but the Palestinian will is stronger than all temptation.

Al-Rikhawi adds:

15 of sick prisoners are helped by one well prisoner, so let's imagine if nine paralyzed prisoners want to use the bathroom every morning! The occupation really practices all types of medical carelessness since it was deliberately retarding to diagnose the prisoner who was suffering from pains. The prisoners needed years to be diagnosed, so the infections seize him and any treatment becomes in vain.

He says: I lived in the hospital of Al-Ramlaah Jail for about 9 years, and I saw that the prisoner who needed a simple surgery waits for about 2 years, so what about other serious infections!

Al-Rikhawi says:

I witnessed about 16 cases who passed away in the prison; most of them had cancer. He assures that the prisoner Mohammad Daida from Tol Karm was assassinated directly after three days of arresting him by the Israeli Intelligence. He was in a bad condition since he was shot during Arrest.

Also, the prisoner Zohair Labada was martyred after some days of releasing him, and that because of medical carelessness. He was delayed to have kidney dialysis, the matter that caused the liver stop function, so a medical committee decided to release him after knowing he will day after few days.

The prisoner Jomaa Al-Kayali died after he had been delayed to get out to ther clinic, while the prisoner Maysara Abu Hamdeye was suffering from pains that were really a cancer, but he didn't get good therapy, so he died. The prisoner Khaled Al-Shawish had a partial paralysis, and was taking 20 ml of opioid Analgesic, and after 4 years he began taking 120 ml to become as addiction. He couldn't spend an hour without feeling in pain.

The prison administration always tries to give the patient various kinds of drugs to lose his mind, self-confidence, and every meaning for life, so the doctor exerts no effort while the pain increases and the medicine becomes useless. There are 20 cases who are sitting on the climax of pain, and my words can't really express their conditions, so I am still affected by that scene.

Al-Rikhawi remembers the unit Nahshoun attacked the section and bared all the prisoners even the hardship cases. I could see the paralyzed prisoners whose clothes were taken off by force; the scene resembles terrorists' arrest. They were pulled on the ground with chained hands from their rooms to the yard; these are unforgettable scenes.

Shedding tears, Al-rikhawi comments:

The human is the most important, Al-Aqsa will survive and will be liberated, but if the prisoner dies, he won't be back, so we have to work to release them even the price is our lives and our sons' ones.

A meeting with the martyr, the prisoner Ashraf Abu Dr Drae before his martyrdom:

To observe the hard conditions of the prisoners in the Al-Ramlah Hospital and how they are insulted, we attach the details of a meeting between the head of Mandella Institute, the attorney “Bothaina Dokmak” and the prisoner Ashraf Abu Drae who died a month after the meeting. She visited him in 28-5-2012, and he died in 22-1-2013 due to medical carelessness.

She confirmed then that his health conditions are so bad because the administration disregarded his treatment, so he was offered only relief medicines despite he suffered from several hazardous diseases as muscular dystrophy in legs, and other serious pains in legs, the matter the led him move on a wheelchair.

The prisoner said to the attorney Dokmak:

In every moment, the administration tries hard we live in a hell of suffering as our arrest is enough, so it imposes on us serious measures. In this section we live the same conditions as other bad jails, so it is a hospital only by name. Abu Drae certificates: the patients live with their reality of their so bad conditions that ban then from suitable treatment, but the conditions are worsening daily. He adds: three years ago, I was deteriorated, so a doctor from the institute “Doctors without borders” checked him, and recommended it is necessary I have normal treatment — 5 times a week-, but the prison administration didn't commit except one or twice a week.

An Arab member in the Kenessete criticizes the conditions in the hospital:

The deputy in the Kenessete, Dr. Afo Eghbarya criticizes vehemently the bad treatment that the sick prisoners get in the hospital of Al-Ramlah Jail. He said that this place is called sarcastically a hospital since it lacks the medical instruments and the special doctors, so the jailer is the doctor. What aggravates the matter- he says- is the lack of the suitable medicines for the hardship cases; there is only Aspirin.

Eghbarya said:

It is better for Israel to close this hospital to replace it with a new one that offers the complete medical services as the human rights demand. This hospital as a name shouldn't be exploited as an excuse to hide the oppressing policy against the Palestinian prisoners. He assures the necessity of adopting specialized doctors from the various official hospitals to offer the appropriate treatment in this bad hospital and also to offer the essential medical instruments that rehabilitate it into a hospital that offers the suitable medical watch as well as therapy.

Eghbarya discussed the matter of medical carelessness on the schedule of the Kenessete after Israeli press had uncovered documented information about the dangerous carelessness of the prison administration in offering therapy for the serious illnesses that the prisoners suffer from in the Israeli jails. This carelessness has secretly to the death of many prisoners as nothing happened.

Dr. Eghbarya said: according to the Palestinian prisoners are facing serious and risky health conditions that lead three of them in 2013 into death. The three prisoners are:

Maysara Abu Hamdeya, Arafat Jradat, and Hasan Torabi who has died lately in the hospital of Affola Jail. The Palestinian Prisoners who died in the Israeli jails due to bad conditions are 208 prisoners. This number is known by names by the security authorities. In addition, there are 1400 prisoners in the Israeli jails are suffering from hard different conditions. 170 prisoners need immediate and necessary surgeries, 85 of them suffer from various handicap, 25 had cancer without getting suitable treatment, and 16 prisoners spend their time in the hospital of Al-Ramlaah Jail. The danger of death threatens the lives of hundreds of prisoners if these deliberate conditions go on, and this what the governmental mainly “the security” cycles propose.

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