Terrorist who murdered 8 people gains sympathy by writing about the hardships of serving time in prison
Op-ed by terrorist prisoner Osama Al-Ashqar, responsible for the murder of at least 8
Headline: "The Palestinian prisoners – resolve and belief in the inevitable victory"
"The Palestinian people and free people of the entire world are marking Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, this day that comes as an expression of the extent of the world's appreciation and honor for the sacrifice and struggles of the hundreds of thousands of prisoners who have been imprisoned for resisting the Israeli occupation. This is because our Palestinian people has not been the only one that suffered from occupation and imprisonment, and there are dozens if not hundreds of peoples in the world who have been under military occupation, which at times tried to take over their land and erode their rights.
Prisons have been the most violent tool of occupation after killing, as imprisonment has a significance that is beyond the regular person's ability to comprehend, and no person, regardless of their power of imagination, can feel the feelings of the prisoner within a prison cell, aside from a prisoner like him. Even for those with the greatest ability to express themselves and describe [things], it is difficult to explain this feeling, as imprisonment has human elements – daily and mental – that are different from anything else. This is the thing most contradictory to the human nature of a person to love living, traveling, developing, enjoying, having relationships, and settling down, and all of the elements of human life that are the central basis of being human. This is exactly what the jailors who are exaggeratedly and deliberately attempting to deny the prisoner the simplest things that cause him to feel human in an attempt to subjugate him have understood…
Denying medical treatment and monitoring as long as the prisoner is still alive is an additional attempt to prove that the jailor alone can determine the prisoner’s fate. What the Palestinian prisoner is experiencing and what he is suffering in the cellars of the occupation's prisons is nearly the worst global model in modern history. This is because he is not a prisoner in the traditional sense who suffers from the denial of his freedom of movement, but rather there are much deeper aspects, as the occupation's supreme goal is to turn the prisoner into an entity that is weak, submissive, ineffective or unaffected, and incapable of human development."
Osama Al-Ashqar - Palestinian terrorist and member of the Tanzim (Fatah terror faction) who sent terrorists to carry out the attack in Hermesh on Oct. 29, 2002, in which 3 Israelis were murdered, and the attack in Kibbutz Metzer on Nov. 11, 2002, in which 5 Israelis were murdered. He was also convicted of being responsible for dozens of shooting attacks in the Tulkarem area. Al-Ashqar is serving 8 life sentences and an additional 50 years.
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."