The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said yesterday, Tuesday, that the Israeli prison administration is using skin scabies as a tool to torture Palestinian detainees in its prisons.
The club stated in a statement that scabies was one of the most prominent diseases that the prisoners were released from, and its effects were clear on their bodies. Medical examinations also confirmed that they suffered from other health problems as a result.
He added that the prison administration uses scabies as a tool to abuse and torture prisoners, and has also turned the right to treatment over many decades into a tool of abuse.
The club conveyed the testimony of a prisoner – whose name was not mentioned – who was released from the Israeli Ramon Prison (south), in which he said that “the prison administration classified the section he was in as ‘zombie’ because of what the disease left on their bodies (the prisoners and the injured).”
He continued, “The majority of the prisoners who are released suffer from health problems, including chronic problems and need medical follow-up.”
The Prisoners’ Club published pictures of prisoners who were released on Tuesday after the end of their sentences. “Their appearances changed as a result of the systematic crimes they were subjected to by the occupation against them, specifically medical crimes and the crime of starvation, in addition to the basis of these crimes, which is the crime of torture.”
According to the club, among those released was “the child Iyad (15 years old), from Shuafat Camp (east of Jerusalem). He was released under very difficult health conditions as a result of his infection with scabies.”
He pointed out that Israel has arrested more than 11,300 Palestinians in the West Bank and thousands more from Gaza, since the start of the genocide in the Strip on October 7, 2023.
It is noteworthy that the Palestinian Authority for the Affairs of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners referred in a report last June to the occupation’s crimes against the child prisoners in its prisons, who suffer from severe overcrowding, are deprived of showers, their clothes are confiscated except for what they wear, and they are not allowed to possess soap and sanitizers, which has contributed to the spread of disease. Scabies among them.
In conjunction with the genocide launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip, the occupation army expanded its operations, and settlers escalated their attacks in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which resulted in a total of 756 Palestinians being martyred and about 6,250 injured.
With American support, the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza resulted in more than 141,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, and more than 10,000 missing persons, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly.
Tel Aviv continues its massacres, ignoring the UN Security Council resolution to end them immediately, and the orders of the International Court of Justice to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.