Quarter of Palestinian prisoners patients

The Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said Tuesday that over a quarter of the Palestinian detainees at the Israeli jails suffer from serious diseases and the rest are about to jump on the bandwagon. A total of 1,400 detainees suffer from diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer, kidney failure, paralysis, blood pressure, and hearing and vision difficulties as well as heart, skin, bone and joint diseases, according to a report unveiled by Director of the Ministry's Statistics Dept. Abdulnasser Farawneh here. Several prisoners suffer from physical and mental disorders due to the severe detention conditions, he said, voicing concern over the life-threatening situation at the jails. "The Israeli occupation authorities persist in the policy of trifling with the lives of the detainees and denying them access to proper and timely mediation," Farawneh stressed. "The sick detainees make up over a quarter of the total number according to the data available to us. If there is a more comprehensive and accurate survey they could constitute half of the detainees," he revealed. Farawneh urged the regional and international human rights organizations and media organization to show solidarity with the detainees and work towards release of detainees or improving the detention conditions.