Inmate’s death prompts protests
Jerusalem – Palestinian leaders accused Israel of medical negligence and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners protested in Israeli jails after a fellow inmate died yesterday of cancer.
Maysara Abu Hamdeya, 63, died in an Israeli hospital in the southern city of Beersheba three days after he was taken there by prison authorities and two months after receiving a diagnosis of throat cancer.
Palestinian officials, citing a lawyer who visited Hamdeya, said he had complained of throat pain since last August but that inadequate treatment had led to a critical delay in the diagnosis.
Sivan Weizman, a spokeswoman for the Israel Prison Service, said a committee would examine the handling of Hamdeya’s case, as in every instance of a prisoner’s death.
She said that Hamdeya had been treated since his diagnosis in February and that prison authorities applied to a parole board for his early release after he was found to be terminally ill. He died before the process could be completed, she said.
The death set off protests by Palestinian inmates, who pounded on doors and hurled objects from their cells, Weizman said. In one facility, wardens used tear gas to disperse inmates protesting in the yard.
Hamdeya, a retired general in the Palestinian security services, had been arrested at the height of the Palestinian uprising in 2002 and was serving a life sentence for dispatching a suicide bomber to a Jerusalem cafe, according to Israeli officials. The attacker’s explosives-laden vest failed to detonate.
Hamdeya’s death drew sharp responses from Palestinian leaders, who have sought to highlight the Palestinian prisoner issue after a recent wave of street protests in the West Bank supporting hunger-striking inmates and in response to the death of another prisoner under interrogation.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the ‘‘arrogance’’ of Israeli authorities, whom he said had rejected attempts by Palestinian officials to secure Hamdeya’s early release for medical treatment.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad denounced ‘‘the continued policy of medical negligence of Israeli prison authorities’’ and called for international monitoring of Israeli jails.
A statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Palestinian officials of exploiting the prisoner’s death to escalate tensions.
In the West Bank city of Hebron, Hamdeya’s home town, stonethrowing protesters confronted Israeli soldiers, and a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel but caused no damage or casualties, the army said.