AhlulBayt News Agency - Hemaya Center for Human Rights has said that the lives of more than 1,700 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have become vulnerable and at risk as a result of their exposure to medical neglect.
The center stated that more than 700 prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails suffer from chronic diseases, especially heart problems and cancer.
In a news conference held on Monday outside the Red Cross headquarters in Gaza, legal researcher of the center Wasim al-Shanti accused the Israeli prison authority of pursuing a systematic medical neglect policy against the prisoners.
Shanti stated that the administrations of Israeli prisons refuse to hospitalize dozens of sick prisoners who were prescribed urgent surgeries and only provide them with pain killers.
He added that many prisoners were taken to prison infirmaries to receive treatment for minor ailments, but they ended up with serious disabilities and diseases and some of them died later.
He described such Israeli practices towards the prisoners as a "war crime" and a violation of the fourth Geneva convention, which stipulates the protection of prisoners' health.
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