ISRAELI SPECIAL UNITS BRUTALLY ATTACK SICK PRISONER

Ramallah, 28 Sya`ban 1436/15 June 2015 (MINA) – Israeli soldiers from the Nahshon special unit Sunday severely assaulted a sick Palestinian prisoner, while he was being transferred to hospital to undergo medical examination.

Prisoner Mohammed Abd Rabo, 29, told a Palestinian Prisoner’s Club (PPC) lawyer, who visited him in the Israeli Nafha jail following the assault, that around 20 soldiers from Nahshon unit severally assualted him for asking them to untie his hands and feet during his transfer to Soroka Medical Center, in Israel, for medical examination.

He said that soldiers brutally attacked him and threw him on the floor before sending him back to jail without taking him to hospital, WAFA Palestinian News Agency quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Abd Rabo, who was sentenced to 16 years in jail, suffers from what he described as unbearable pain due to chronic stomach pain and vomiting. He said that the Israeli prison administration only provides him with over the counter pain killers.

Palestinian prisoners are held in overcrowded cells that lack basic health standards, including the infestation of insects and rats, extreme cold and lack of heating methods, and wastewater leakage into their cells, which further aggravates their already poor conditions.

Prisoners are often subjected to physical abuse during their detention, interrogation and transfer between prisoners, which is prohibited by international law.

Under international law, it is illegal to transfer prisoners outside of the occupied territory in which they are detained and it is very difficult for the families of Palestinian detainees to obtain permits to visit their detained relatives.(T/R05)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)