Ramallah, occupied West Bank – An Israeli court has postponed a parole board to assess the possibility of an early release for terminally ill Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqa, 61, who was transferred to hospital several days ago.
“Despite his extremely difficult state of health… the court hearing to review parole for treatment has been postponed to May 31,” his family said in a statement Wednesday.
Daqqa, who suffers from an advanced stage of bone marrow cancer, was transferred to the intensive care unit of Assaf Harofeh Hospital south of Tel Aviv on Monday due to further health complications.
Dozens of Palestinians took to the streets in Ramallah in the central Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday night to demand Daqqa’s immediate release.
Daqqa is from the Palestinian city of Baqa al-Gharbiya in Israel and is one of the most prominent thinkers and writers of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement. He has a master’s degree in political science and has written several books while in prison, including a children’s book.
Jailed by Israel in 1986 for involvement in the murder of an Israeli soldier, he was sentenced to 37 years in prison, which he served in March 2023, but Israeli authorities had his sentence extended by two years in 2017 over charges of smuggling mobile phones. in jail.
“Walid Daqqa could lose his life at any moment. His health is in great danger. He can’t walk or speak properly. He also can’t breathe normally – he’s on a ventilator,” Ihtiram Ghazawneh of the Addameer Palestinian prisoner rights group told Al Jazeera.
“He has served his sentence of 37 years. He is no longer someone who is in a security file. He must be able to continue treatment outside prison, with his family, because even if he is released, it is not clear how long he will live,” Ghazawneh continued, adding that they have “met with diplomats to put pressure on their governments for its expenditure”.
Daqqa underwent surgery on April 12 to remove a large portion of his right lung. He was placed in the Ramle Prison Clinic on May 7 — notorious for its poor conditions — and given only antibiotics and a series of physiotherapy sessions, according to prisoner groups (pdf).
“Walid needs to be in a hospital, under constant monitoring and treatment. Not in the Ramle prison clinic, which is not suitable for the sick, let alone someone with such a dangerous health situation as Walid,” Ghazawneh said.
On Monday, his family said in a statement that their only demand is Daqqa’s “immediate release … so that he can receive unrestricted treatment,” adding that “prison authorities bear full responsibility for his life given the lack of appropriate treatment for the rare form of cancer.” he suffers from”.
Late Tuesday night, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a tweet that Daqqa should “end his life in prison.”
Palestinian Authority officials said such an “incendiary statement” is “considered an official license to kill him.”
‘Unmistakable role’
Daqqa, according to Addameer, started complaining about health problems as early as 2015. Three years later, doctors recommended that he underwent periodic blood tests, which the prison authorities refused. It was not until December 2022 that he was admitted to hospital after a sudden deterioration in his health, where bone marrow cancer was diagnosed and an urgent transplant was declared necessary.
The transplant surgery didn’t get him until today.
In January 2023, a doctor who evaluated Daqqa’s medical condition said he has an “average survival of about a year and a half” without definitive treatment.
In mid-February, Daqqa suffered a massive stroke. Despite needing emergency treatment, he was not transferred to a hospital until 11 days later. During that time, he lost at least 20 pounds and a significant amount of blood in a month and a half.
In March 2023, the Council of Palestinian Human Rights Organizations (PHROC) issued an urgent appeal to the United Nations calling for Daqqa’s immediate release.
“There is no denying that the IPS [Israeli Prison Services] played a direct role, if not an exclusive role, in Walid’s life-threatening condition,” the appeal said.
“The IPS has denied him a timely bone marrow transplant – the only known course of treatment that could save his life, despite every consulting physician’s recommendation,” it noted.
“Critically, the instrumentalization of medical negligence as a tool to belittle, demoralize and punish Palestinian prisoners is characteristic of Israel’s illegal and inhumane prison system.”
In 1999, Daqqa married behind bars. He and his wife, Sana Salameh, welcomed their daughter Milad in 2020, conceived after his sperm was smuggled out of prison.
He is one of 23 prisoners held in Israeli prisons, in violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which stipulated that all Palestinian prisoners held before the signing of the agreement would be released.
Walid Daqqa, a 61-year-old Palestinian writer, activist, intellectual and political prisoner, was diagnosed in 2022 with a rare form of bone marrow cancer. Walid has been in urgent need of medical attention ever since.#Free_Walid_Daqqah pic.twitter.com/utZcewWQt9
— Addameer –الضمير (@Addameer) May 23, 2023
In recent months, Palestinians and supporters have taken to social media to demand that Daqqa be released under the hashtag #Free_Walid_Daqqa.
Palestinian officials and human rights organizations have long documented and condemned a “deliberate Israeli policy of medical negligence.”
According to prisoner groups, Israeli prison authorities regularly delay checks and urgent operations for Palestinian prisoners for years.
Specialized doctors are not regularly available, except for dentists, and “over-the-counter painkillers are administered as a cure for almost all health problems,” human rights groups said in a joint report to the United Nations.
‘Every year we lose prisoners’
On May 2, Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan died while in Israeli custody on the 87th day of a hunger strike against his repeated arbitrary arrests, sparking widespread anger and prompting armed resistance groups in the besieged Gaza Strip to fire rockets at Israel.
In December 2022, Palestinian prisoner Nasser Abu Hmaid also died in Israeli custody, despite lengthy calls for his release and claims of Israeli medical negligence following his belated cancer diagnosis a year earlier.
In 2020, four Palestinian prisoners died in Israeli custody.
“If Walid Daqqa is not released, he should be placed in an appropriate treatment environment,” Ghazawneh said. ‘The Ramle Prison Clinic is the same place where Khader Adnan was martyred. We don’t want to keep losing our prisoners because of the way the occupation is behaving.”
Speaking to Al Jazeera during the Ramallah protest, former prisoner and hunger striker Mohammad al-Qiq said the international community “should at least send a commission to review Israel’s actions towards our prisoners, which violate all international laws.” review.
“Every year we lose prisoners to medical negligence, oppressive policies and international silence on these crimes,” said the 41-year-old.