Israel notoriously blocks Palestinian patients, especially in Gaza and in Israeli prisons, from obtaining permission to travel for medical care. Ten have died in 2022.
Cancer-stricken Detainee Dies At Israeli Hospital
reposted from IMEMC – the International Middle East Media Center, December 20, 2022
The Palestinian Detainees’ Committee confirmed Tuesday that the cancer-stricken Palestinian detainee, Nasser Abu Hmeid, imprisoned by Israel and serving several life terms, has died at an Israeli medical center.
The Committee said Nasser Mohammad Abu Hmeid, 50, from the Al-Am’ari refugee camp near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, was moved from the Ramla prison clinic to Assaf Harofeh Israeli medical center after suffering serious complications and died at the hospital.
Abu Hmeid’s condition started declining in August of last year, 2021, when he complained of pain in the chest and was diagnosed with lung cancer.
Israeli surgeons removed about 100 centimeters from the area of his tumor and moved him back to Asqalan prison despite his urgent need for chemotherapy and other treatment.
He was left without treatment for some time before the doctors decided he urgently needed chemotherapy and other treatment, but the prison authority kept delaying his transfer to a hospital and denied him the potentially life-saving treatment.
Just recently, Nasser was able to undergo more chemotherapy treatment, but his cancer has already spread and become terminal.
Over the past several months, many human rights and legal groups filed appeals with Israeli courts demanding Nasser’s release to receive treatment at a Palestinian medical center close to his family, but Israel denied all appeals.
Nasser was serving seven life terms and additional fifty years in prison; he was abducted for the first time in the year 1987 and was imprisoned for four months; he was abducted again and sentenced to two and a half years.
He was abducted for the third time in 1990 and was sentenced to life in prison, but was released as part of direct Palestinian-Israeli talks; however, not long after, the army abducted him before he was sentenced to several life terms.
Nasser is also the brother of Abdul-Mon’em Abu Hmeid, who was killed by the Israeli army on May 31, 1994, in addition to Nasr Abu Hmeid, who is serving four life terms in Israeli prisons, Sharif, serving four life terms, Mohammad, serving two life terms and thirty years, and Islam who is serving a life term and eight years in prison.
The Abu Hmeid family home was demolished by Israel five times, and his mother was barred from visiting her imprisoned sons, especially Nasser, for several years; their father also died without seeing his sons.
It is worth mentioning that Nasser was born in 1972 in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip before his family moved to the West Bank.
Nasser’s death brings the number of detainees who died in Israeli prisons since Israeli occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem in the year 1967 to 233.
Seventy-four of the deceased detainees died due to medical neglect after Israel denied them the right to adequate and professional medical attention; one of them, Sa’diyya Farajallah, 68, had diabetes and high blood pressure, diabetes, a heart condition, and various chronic illnesses, and was taking various medications before she was taken prisoner and was denied the right to medical treatment.
Israel holds at least 4700 Palestinians captive, including 150 children and 33 women. About 600 detainees are sick, including 24 who suffer from cancers and tumors of various degrees.
Gaza cancer patient dies after Israel denied travel permits for treatment in Jerusalem
reposted from IMEMC – the International Middle East Media Center, December 19, 2022
Al-Mezan Center For Human Rights: The discriminatory movement restrictions and the arbitrary permit regime imposed by Israeli authorities on Palestinian patients from Gaza, which obstruct their access to hospitals outside the Strip, have claimed another Palestinian life.
The most recent case of permit delay led to the death of Mahmoud Mohammed Al-Kurd, a 45-year-old cancer patient from Deir al-Balah City, on 16 December 2022, after being repeatedly denied access to the Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem.
Al-Kurd suffered from lung cancer. Despite obtaining a medical referral from the Palestinian Ministry of Health and securing appointments at the Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem, Israeli authorities denied him the requisite exit permit to travel for four different appointments.
The last appointment to which access was denied for Al-Kurd was scheduled for 29 November 2022.
As Al-Kurd’s legal representative, Al Mezan communicated with the Israeli Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) at Erez Crossing to grant him a permit, but to no avail.
We then filed a preliminary petition to the Israeli Prosecutor’s Office in Beersheba to facilitate the patient’s access to the hospital, but the Prosecutor’s Office responded that they would allow him to pass through Jordan, although his appointment was in Jerusalem.
At that point, Al Mezan, together with Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI), took the case to the Israeli Supreme Court, which approved the patient’s access to the hospital through the Erez crossing.
On 15 December 2022, the patient received a new hospital appointment at Augusta Victoria Hospital and accessed the hospital successfully. However, he arrived in Jerusalem in extremely poor health conditions and was pronounced dead the next day, at 10:30 pm on Friday, 16 December 2022.
Al Mezan’s documentation shows that since the beginning of 2022, nine patients—including three children—have died following Israel’s delay or denial of requests for exit permits.
We reiterate that Israel’s draconian, stifling closure of Gaza serves to deny inhabitants their fundamental right to health, and other inalienable rights, as part of an entrenched system of oppression, domination, and discrimination against the Palestinian people.
Al Mezan’s decades of experience in representing patients indicates that Israel’s denials or permit delays are not based on valid reasons but rather are part of the collective punishment and apartheid regime to which it subjects more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Al Mezan calls on the international community—in particular, the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Geneva Conventions—to uphold their moral and legal obligations vis-à-vis the protected Palestinian people and to ensure Israel complies with its obligations under international law, ends the closure and blockade on the Gaza Strip, and stops its ongoing restrictions of Palestinian patients’ access to medical care outside the Gaza Strip.
Lastly, Al Mezan reiterates that the continued impunity provided to the Israeli forces encourages the repetition of crimes and violations against the Palestinian people.
NOTE: The West Bank has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. Israeli ‘settlers’ are living in jewish-only colonies that have been established on confiscated Palestinian land and are illegal under international law. Due to the pro-Israel lobby in the US, Congress disburses over $20 million per day of Americans’ tax money directly to or on behalf of Israel.
For a complete list of Palestinians and Israelis killed since 2000, please visit Israel-Palestine Timeline
IMEMC, the International Middle East Media Center, is a media center developed in collaboration between Palestinian and International journalists to provide independent media coverage of Israel-Palestine. It was founded by the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People in 2003. In 2021, IMEMC became a project of the American nonprofit organization If Americans Knew.
FURTHER READING ON ISRAEL’S MEDICAL APARTHEID:
- Israel’s epidemic rate of medical permit denial for Gaza’s children
- Int’l medical community must call out Israel’s medical cruelty & war crimes
- Israel prevents seriously injured Gazans travel for urgent medical care
- Palestinian Detainee Dies in Israeli Jails, Another Victim of Medical Negligence
- Israel’s history of biological warfare & poisoning – violations of int’l law
OTHER RECENT PALESTINIAN DEATHS IN JENIN:
- Invading Israeli soldiers kill another teen In Jenin (Nov. 21, 2022)
- Israeli forces kill Palestinian teen in Jenin raid (Oct.21, 2022)
- 12-year-old dies from injuries after Israeli soldier shot him Sept 28 in Jenin (Oct. 10, 2022)
- Dozens of Israeli armored vehicles, helicopters invade Jenin, kill 2, injure 11 (Oct. 9, 2022)
- Israeli Soldiers Kill Four, Injure Forty-Four Palestinians, In Jenin (Sept. 28, 2022)
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