Deterioration of MP Al-Natsheh’s Health Due to Torture in Occupation Prisons

The Israeli prison administration refused to allow the lawyer of detainee and Palestinian Legislative Council member, Mohammad Jamal Al-Natsheh, from Hebron in the southern West Bank, to meet with him after his health condition deteriorated, claiming he had been transferred to another hospital.

Prisoner organizations reported that, a few days after his arrest, the prison administration transferred him from Ofer Prison to Hadassah Hospital in critical condition following a violent assault during his interrogation, which resulted in a brain hemorrhage, kidney failure, and his falling into a complete coma. He was then transferred to Ramleh Prison Hospital, where he remains in a state of shock that reflects the extent of the torture he endured, according to the Prisoners’ Media Office.

Family sources confirmed that the MP was in good health before his arrest and did not suffer from any illnesses, which clearly indicates that his condition resulted from torture during interrogation, in what amounts to an explicit and slow assassination attempt.

Human rights and international organizations, foremost among them the International Committee of the Red Cross, have called for immediate and urgent intervention to reveal his health condition, allow his lawyer to visit him, provide the necessary medical care, and take serious action to save his life before it is too late.

Al-Natsheh has been arrested several times and has spent a total of 23 years in occupation prisons, most of them under administrative detention.

The case of prisoner Al-Natsheh reflects hundreds of cases that have been subjected to harsh interrogations and torture, as well as orders preventing lawyer visits during the initial period of detention, in an attempt to maintain pressure on the detainee and extract confessions, according to the Prisoners’ Club.