RAMALLAH, October 20, 2025 (WAFA) – The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) confirmed today that detainee and lawyer Azmi Nader Abu Hleil, who has been held in Israel’s Ofer detention center since December 2024, is suffering from severe health complications after contracting scabies last April, without receiving the necessary medical treatment for more than six months.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said in a statement that Abu Hleil’s condition has deteriorated critically, as abscesses have spread across his body, accompanied by visible cracks and sores, as observed during the latest visit to Ofer detention center.
The detainee, from the town of Dura in Hebron, was subjected to a violent assault by prison forces last September after repeatedly demanding medical treatment, during which the forces fired rubber-coated metal bullets at him, further aggravating his already fragile health condition.
According to the statement, Abu Hleil, 32, currently suffers from severe itching, painful ulcers, and sleep deprivation, while continuing to be denied medical care. He has also experienced a sharp loss of weight, dropping to 49 kilograms, as a result of a systematic starvation policy imposed against him.
PPS noted that Abu Hleil is one among thousands of detainees who have contracted scabies inside Israeli prisons, where the disease has become a form of torture due to the deliberate neglect imposed by the Israeli Prison Administration.
The prison administration deliberately maintains conditions that cause the disease by depriving detainees of cleaning and disinfecting materials, denying them regular showers, and limiting them to a single set of clothing.
Prisoners are also forced to hand-wash their clothes and are prevented from drying them in open air, leaving them damp and contributing to the spread of skin diseases.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society affirmed that the prison administration continues to ignore the detainees’ repeated demands to receive medical treatment or transfer the sick to clinics, turning the spread of epidemics and skin diseases into one of the most evident forms of systematic abuse, which has worsened since the onset of the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, and has led to the killing of several detainees.
PPS also noted that legal efforts made by specialized organizations, including petitions to Israel’s High Court to compel the prison administration to provide medical treatment and eliminate the causes of the disease, were met with only formal and limited responses. As a result, the disease has reemerged and spread once again in central prisons such as Negev and Ofer.
It affirmed that the continuation of this policy reflects the prison system’s deliberate intent to kill detainees, using the denial of medical treatment as a tool of torture, in what constitutes medical crimes.
PPS said that detainees in Israeli prisons are facing an escalating health catastrophe, along with ongoing repression and daily violations, as part of a systematic policy aimed at torturing and gradually killing Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
It stressed that the Israeli occupation authorities do not conceal their criminal intentions, as openly expressed by extremist minister Itamar Ben Gvir through his repeated calls to enact legislation allowing the execution of detainees and to shoot them in the head instead of detaining them.
PPS further noted that the profound changes witnessed in the reality of detainees following the genocide have led to dangerous and unprecedented developments, turning their situation into a direct continuation of the genocide and one of its most evident ongoing manifestations.
T.R.
