The Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society have confirmed the death of former prisoner Ismail Taqatqa (40) from Bethlehem, after he passed away on Wednesday morning in Jordan, five months after his release, due to systematic medical negligence in Israeli prisons.
According to a joint statement by the commission and the society Taqatqa was diagnosed with leukemia after his release on August 29, 2024.
They stated that Taqatqa is the latest known victim of the systematic medical crimes perpetrated by the Israeli prison system against thousands of prisoners who have been subjected to unprecedented systematic torture since the beginning of the genocide war.
Medical crimes and denial of treatment have been the primary tools for executing systematic killings of dozens of prisoners since the war began.
These crimes include imposing harsh and tragic detention conditions, torturing and assaulting prisoners, deliberately causing illnesses by denying them treatment and healthcare, starving them, and turning their need for treatment into a tool of torture.
The commission and the society highlighted that Taqatqa’s case raises significant and ongoing questions about the fate of thousands of detainees in Israeli prisons, particularly the sick detainee whose numbers remain largely unknown as Israeli continues to prevent international organizations, including the Red Cross, from visiting the prions, detention centers and camps and interrogation facilities.
Human rights groups can no longer count the exact number of detainees, including those who died from torture and abuse, and those who never received the needed medical treatment, especially those who were kidnapped from the devastated Gaza Strip.
Also, most detainees released by the occupation authorities suffer from serious health issues, necessitating their immediate transfer to hospitals upon release.
Some were later found to have chronic health issues they did not have before their detention, based on medical examinations conducted after their release, as well as general health symptoms they complained of after their release, according to their testimonies.
The commission and the society pointed out that the occupation continues its crimes against detainees not only while impassioned, but even after their release by depriving them treatment in hospitals in the 1948 territories, and Jerusalem, as happened with Taqatqa.
After it was found that he needed a bone marrow transplant, the occupation refused to transfer him for treatment and later obstructed his transfer to Jordan, leading to the deterioration of his health until he died on Wednesday morning.
Taqatqa, who was married and a father of four, did not suffer from health problems before his abduction in March 2024.
In the last period of his detention in Ofer Prison in August 2024, before his release, his health condition suddenly deteriorated.
After his condition worsened and reached a critical stage, he was transferred to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, before he was transferred to An-Najah University Hospital, in Nablus in the northern West Bank, where he stayed for a while before being transferred to Jordan.
In this context, the commission and the society emphasized that the longer detainees remain in Israeli prisons, with the continued retaliatory measures after the war, the more their health conditions will deteriorate, causing illnesses even among healthy detainees.
Many detainees who did not suffer from health problems previously now suffer from clear health issues, especially with the spread of epidemics among them, most notably scabies, which has become a clear example of medical crimes and the deliberate spread of epidemics among them to kill them and cause chronic health problems that cannot be treated later.
The commission and the society held the Israeli prison administration fully responsible for Taqatqa’s death and the fate of thousands of detainees facing systematic measures aimed at killing them.
Among the notable cases, in addition to Taqatqa’s case, is the case of former political prisoner Farouq Al-Khatib, who was released in December 2023 and died five months after his release after being diagnosed with advanced stage cancer.
In this context, prisoners’ institutions renewed their call to the families of released detainees to immediately transfer their sons to the nearest hospitals and conduct necessary examinations upon their release, obtain an initial medical report on their health condition, and keep the report for its importance, considering the serious health data monitored by the institutions about the health conditions of prisoners and released prisoners.
They reiterated their repeated demands to the international human rights system to restore its role and stop the terrifying state of international impotence in the face of the ongoing genocide war and the crimes committed against detainees in Israeli prisons and camps, which constitute another aspect of the ongoing genocide.
