JERUSALEM, January 11, 2018 (WAFA) – Isra Jaabis, 32, a mother of a baby child and a resident of Jabal al-Mukkaber neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, appealed to the Israeli High Court against her 11-year sentence levied against her in November 2016 after she was charged of attempting to blow up an Israeli army checkpoint outside Jerusalem in October 2015.
The High Court deliberated her appeal on Thursday and said it will send its decision to Jaabis’ attorney at the end of deliberations.
Jaabis, who is married to a Palestinian from Jericho, had a gas cylinder in her car when it blew up, apparently accidently, when she was only meters away from the checkpoint to the east of Jerusalem. Her family said at the time that she was moving her stuff from Jericho to a new place in Jerusalem when the cylinder blew up by accident. The army, however, decided otherwise and said Jaabis was intending to blow up the checkpoint.
The Jerusalem resident was seriously hurt in the accident with third degrees burns on 60 percent of her body and face. She also lost eight fingers.
During her detention, Jaabis did not get proper medical treatment, says her family and activists, and therefore her condition has worsened. Activists launched a campaign to demand her release to get badly needed medical treatment.
According to her family, their daughter’s health situation has deteriorated. She suffers from constant pain and fever and that she needs years of treatment and physical and psychological rehabilitation.
Jaabis sent an urgent message from her prison cell this week complaining of pain and ache all over her body and of medical negligence in prison.
She said she is suffering from cramps in her hands and feet, which prevent her from doing the most basic things of life and make her feel humiliated and ashamed because she is in constant need of assistance from her cellmates.
"I urgently need surgery to treat these cramps so that I can perform my simple private needs alone. The [prison] administration is always procrastinating and they keep telling me since my arrest that the surgery will be next month but nothing happens and my situation worsens day after day," she wrote.
M.K.
