PA libel: Prisoners suffer “medical neglect” on “instructions” from Israeli “political and security echelon”

PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs Deputy Director Abd Al-Qader Al-Khatib: “Today we have a real problem within the prisons that is getting worse from day to day, and it is the medical neglect… Medical neglect is a policy of the [Israeli] prison management that receives instructions from the political and security echelon in the occupation state.”

[Official PA TV, Topic of the Day, Aug. 6, 2023]

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."