PLO top Official falsely claims Israel "wants to murder" Palestinian prisoners
Official PA TV, live broadcast from a rally in Ramallah supporting terrorist prisoner and cancer patient Nasser Abu Hmeid, who was responsible for the murder of 7 people
Director of PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr: “[The Israelis] are incapable of even accepting that the prisoners are inside the prisons, because the prisoners have turned the prisons into schools and universities and they are studying. [The Israelis] don’t want [this], of course. They don’t want this situation. They want to murder them. Therefore, they use this method: When one of [the prisoners] gets sick, they exploit the illness and make it worse so he will die as a Martyr in prison (sic., see note below regarding PA libel on medical abuse of Palestinian prisoners)…
There are prisoners who have been murdered in prison. In Jenin, for example, the prison manager murdered two of the prisoners in his office who were representatives [of the prisoners in] the prison, and he remained manager of the prison afterwards for four years (sic., PMW found no record of such an incident). In other words-”
Official PA TV reporter: “That’s execution.”
Qadri Abu Bakr: “That’s execution in their offices, because [the prisoners] said something. He told them to apologize. They didn’t apologize, so he shot them. Many of the prisoners who entered prison after being wounded during a certain operation (i.e., terror attack) died as Martyrs in prison. Many of them [died] either from torture or let’s say, what do you call it, from chronic illnesses. We had a number of Martyrs as a result of cancer who died as Martyrs.”
Libel on medical abuse of Palestinian prisoners - The PA claims that Israel abuses Palestinian prisoners through medical neglect, medical experiments, and by intentionally infecting them with diseases. However, the International Red Cross regularly visits these prisoners and has not documented or accused Israel of any of these claims. Likewise, lists of demands occasionally issued by the prisoners during hunger strikes—such as during one in 2011—include no demands relating to these claims. PMW has documented prisoners talking about how they "lack nothing" in the prisons and that "the worst thing about Israeli prison" is riding in a prison vehicle that has no padding on the seat. When PMW contacted the Israeli Ministry of Health in 2007 regarding PA claims of medical experiments on prisoners, the ministry responded: "Clinical testing on prisoners in prison was never approved, never performed, and is most certainly not taking place at present."