Warnings of death threat to the life of cancer-stricken prisoner Abdul Basit Maatan

The family of Palestinian prisoner Abdul Basit Maatan, 51, has expressed serious and genuine fears for his life inside Israeli occupation prisons. Maatan, from the village of Burqa, east of Ramallah, faces harsh detention conditions that exacerbate his suffering from cancer, amid a complete absence of necessary medical care.

The occupation authorities re-arrested Maatan about two months ago and immediately transferred him to administrative detention without a specific charge or a timeframe for release. The prisoner is currently held in Ofer Prison, west of Ramallah, a prison that has witnessed an escalation in repressive measures and systematic abuse against Palestinian prisoners since the start of the recent aggression.

Zubaida Maatan, the prisoner's wife, said that the family's concern is not limited to cancer alone, but extends to include policies of torture and daily violence. She confirmed that information received from released prisoners indicates the spread of skin diseases and systematic starvation, putting the lives of sick prisoners at imminent risk.

Maatan's wife described Israeli prisons as having turned into mass graves, where the most horrific forms of brutal treatment and repression are practiced. She pointed out that this detention is the most difficult in her husband's struggle, during which he spent 11 years in captivity, given its coincidence with unprecedented retaliatory measures.

The family recalled what happened in the previous detention, where Abdul Basit lost about 40 kilograms of his weight due to deliberate medical negligence and deprivation of his specific medications. He was released then with a frail body and severe weakness in memory and vision, and he had barely recovered a small part of his health before the occupation threw him back into the cells again.

In light of the state of emergency imposed by the occupation authorities, lawyers are prevented from visiting Maatan, leaving the family in complete darkness about his precise health condition. Sources from inside the prison reported that the section he is in houses 150 detainees, 130 of whom suffer from scabies due to the lack of hygiene and health supplies.

For his part, Ibrahim, the prisoner's son, called on human rights and international organizations to intervene immediately to release his father, who is detained without a clear legal charge. He warned that the approval of arbitrary laws such as the law to execute prisoners increases the state of terror over the fate of his father and the rest of the prisoners who face slow death behind bars.

Prisons have become mass graves, and open gates of hell for the policies of repression and brutal treatment practiced by the occupation.