• Reports claim that Palestinian prisoners are living in dangerous circumstances

• Another Palestinian prisoner tested positive even today

Israel kills Palestinian prisoners by coronavirus in its custody. In a statement issued by the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), twelve Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons have tested positive for COVID 19 last week. This raises numbers among Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails to 29. Furthermore, the number of cases is expected to rise due to the Israeli policy. 

The Coronavirus pandemic saw all the countries implement measures to protect their people. The Israeli occupation also followed the same preventive measures to protect their people but not the Palestinian political prisoners. 

Israeli prisons are the perfect environment for COVID-19 to spread easily among inmates due to the regularly overcrowded and unsanitary cells. According to the Palestinian prisoners’ lawyers, the occupation authorities are using no prevention measures in their facilities to counter the rising outbreak of Coronavirus. They also noted that while the prison authorities should provide sterilizer materials, they have banned nearly 150 cleaning items from the canteen so far.

Alaa AlIskafi from Addameer, a Palestinian Prisoner rights group, said that the section turned into a quarantine facility for the Palestinian inmates, suspected of having contracted the Coronavirus, is inadequate and may affect their health adversely. “We, before Coronavirus outbreak, informed them,  many times that the minimum health care conditions are not met.,” AlIskafi explained.

Palestinian Prisoners in Numbers

Since 1967, nearly 700 Palestinian prisoners have become ill and 225 have died while in custody due to Israeli medical negligence. The latest, was Dawwoud AlKhateb who, having served 16 years in the Israeli jails, died two days ago.

The family of Hasan Shehada yesterday received the news of their son, having tested positive for Coronavirus in the Israeli jails. Hasan, 20, detained last month, during the large scale of a dawn raid by the Israeli occupation troops, from his home in Bethlehem. He is held under administrative detention without charge or trial. The devastated and angry mother told us, “My son was fit and healthy before the Israeli occupation detained him” “we are banned from visiting him. I am so worried about him.”

Several human rights organizations have pointed out many times that the Israeli policy followed in the Israeli jails encourages the outbreak of Coronavirus. Jailers, who could be infected,  don’t take any preventive measures when dealing directly with the Palestinian prisoners.

Israel currently has over 26,000 active COVID-19 patients. The death toll has surpassed 1,000. Several Israeli jailers were reported to be infected with the virus. There are currently 5,700 Palestinian  prisoners held in Israeli occupation jails, including 205 children and 44 women.