Dr Mazen Rantisi, a 71-year-old Palestinian physician popularly described as the “doctor of the poor”, says he has suffered physical abuse and medical neglect since Israeli authorities detained him more than a month ago, Haaretz reported on Sunday.
The doctor, known for often waiving fees, supplying medicines and operating a clinic that serves as a refuge for low-income Palestinians, was detained in a pre-dawn raid on his home in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on 21 June. Prosecutors later indicted him for serving as chairman of the board of the Union of Health Work Committees, a Palestinian non-profit that provides medical care to thousands of Palestinians each year.
According to the report, Rantisi told a lawyer from the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel that prison authorities withheld his regular medication for the first 10 days in Ofer prison and are still denying him one of his medicines.
His requests to see a doctor went unanswered, and a medic checked his pulse only once through a small opening in the cell door.
Rantisi also reported physical violence, saying that said the prison units raided his cell several times a week and beat detainees.
“The younger prisoners surround me to protect me, taking the beatings themselves,” Rantisi said, adding that the guards sprayed tear gas into the cell during one raid, leaving him struggling to breathe.
CLICK FOLLOW: TO FOLLOW US
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on
Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other eSPORTY
Saja Mishraki-Baransa, the first lawyer to see Rantisi face to face since his arrest, said the physician has rapidly lost weight after receiving tiny portions of food that he described as unfit for human consumption, including mouldy bread, almost-rotten tomatoes, uncooked hummus and foul-smelling rice.
He also said ten prisoners share his six-bed cell, with four taking turns sleeping on mattresses on the floor. Prisoners receive no cleaning supplies and share one piece of soap for washing themselves and their clothes, while wet mattresses have developed mould and the hot cell is infested with pests.
The Israel Prison Service rejected the physician’s account, saying that it held all prisoners in accordance with the law, the Haaretz report said.
The physician’s account, however, echoes accounts from other Palestinian detainees and prisoners.
A Public Defender’s Office report published on 1 July last year said there had been “a significant deterioration in prison conditions in Israel” and “an unprecedented violation of the rights of detainees and prisoners.”
