The Palestinian Prisoner's Club issued a warning cry about a new and dangerous wave of scabies (scabies) spreading among detainees in Israeli occupation prisons. The club confirmed that the pace of the disease's spread has escalated alarmingly recently, as a result of what it described as the deliberate collapse of the health system within detention and interrogation centers.
The club based its report, issued today, Sunday, on dozens of legal visits carried out by the lawyers' team during April and May of this year. Field testimonies revealed catastrophic humanitarian and health conditions, where prisoners are systematically deprived of basic medical treatment and care, which has led to sections becoming infested hotspots.
Legal testimonies indicate that severe overcrowding plays a major role in transmitting the infection, as each cell contains at least eight prisoners, with an average of three of them contracting the skin disease. These rooms lack the minimum conditions for hygiene and sterilization, which has made the disease a tool of physical and psychological torture used against detainees to break their will.
The human rights report monitored the occupation authorities' deliberate cancellation of a number of scheduled legal visits recently, citing that the prisoners targeted for the visit were infected. The Prisoner's Club considered this step an attempt to cover up the extent of the health catastrophe inside the prisons, and to prevent lawyers from documenting the serious medical violations to which the infected are exposed.
The highest rates of infection were concentrated in Ofer, Megiddo, and Naqab prisons, where detainees in Megiddo prison, in particular, suffer from severe symptoms beyond skin itching. These symptoms included severe abdominal and head pains and general body aches, raising real fears of the spread of other epidemics in the absence of effective medical supervision.
The statement clarified that many prisoners entered a cycle of recurrent infections, where the detainee partially recovers and then returns to square one due to the continued deteriorating environmental conditions. Continuous infection cases exceeding five months were recorded without receiving any effective therapeutic dose, which led to an unprecedented worsening of the health conditions of the infected.
Lawyers documented the appearance of serious complications including boils, deep skin ulcers, and acute infections that exhaust the bodies of prisoners. Severe itching and continuous pain caused a state of permanent sleep deprivation, and some cases even reached the point of losing the ability to move normally as a result of health deterioration and general weakness.
On the psychological level, prisoners live in a state of prolonged exhaustion, where their highest aspirations have become limited to obtaining a therapeutic ointment or an opportunity to shower. The club confirmed that the daily suffering with the disease overshadowed other political and human rights demands, which reflects the immense psychological pressure exerted by the occupation through the policy of medical negligence.
The club accused the prison administration of implementing policies aimed at accelerating the spread of infection, by confiscating personal cleaning materials and preventing prisoners from exposure to sunlight or ventilation of cells. Detainees are also forced to wear wet or dirty clothes for long periods due to the lack of clothes and blankets, in conditions lacking human dignity.
According to official statistics, 89 prisoners have been martyred inside prisons since the beginning of the last war, and medical negligence and the spread of diseases were among the main factors in these deaths. Currently, more than 9,400 Palestinians are held in occupation prisons, including hundreds of children and women, all facing the risk of slow death amid complete international silence.
Detention sections have turned into infested hotspots, where at least 8 prisoners are held in a single cell, and at least 3 of them are infected with scabies.
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Warnings of a health catastrophe.. Scabies invades occupation prisons as a systematic torture tool