“SHAMS” Center condemns in the strongest terms the crime committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian prisoner “Saadi Khalil Al-Gharabli” from Gaza City, who is 74 years old and who has been detained for 26 years in Israeli prisons. Al-Gharabli was sentenced to life imprisonment and died inside Kaplan Hospital. On 6/8/2020, after he was transferred to Kaplan Hospital from Al-Ramlleh Prison, following the deterioration of his health status, the prisoner suffers from multiple chronic diseases, the most important of which are cancer, pressure and diabetes. The prisoner was affected with these diseases while he was inside Israeli prisons.
“SHAMS” Center sees the crime as a reflection of the occupation regime’s continued disregard for the Palestinians’ right to life, as well as humanitarian and international laws and norms, in light of the shameful silence on the part of the international community that encourages the occupation to continue its violent practices.
“SHAMS” Center views with great danger the occupation authorities’ procrastination in providing effective and timely medical treatment to the captive, the absolute Israeli disregard for calls and appeals for his release of the aforementioned humanitarian reasons, and disdain for his family’s feelings after the spread of several news about his death and then denying it. Shams contextualized this as a full-fledged premeditated murder by the occupation authorities.
The martyrdom of the Gharabili detainee raises the number of martyrs of the captive movement to 224 martyr prisoners inside the occupation prisons since 1967, whether as a result of torture or deliberate medical negligence, and as the occupation continues through its policies to violate articles (76, 85, 91, 92) of the Fourth Geneva Convention that guaranteed the prisoners’ right to regular and adequate medical care, and “SHAMS” center holds the occupying power “Israel” fully responsible for this crime as the party in charge of detaining the prisoner and which is required by law and international norms to take all necessary measures quickly.
Accordingly, “SHAMS” Center stresses the need for all parties to fulfill their duty towards the crime, and the need to open an impartial international investigation into it, leading to a halt to the policy of medical negligence that threatens the lives of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and the importance of opening the occupation prisons to international and local human rights organizations. “SHAMS Center” demands the need of “The High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949” to oblige the detaining occupying power to open an urgent investigation in accordance with Article 131 of the aforementioned convention, without this detracting from the need to form an international commission of inquiry that possesses the characteristics of impartiality, integrity and independence to determine the merits of the crime and hold those responsible for it accountable to prevent similar potential crimes pursuant to Article (90) of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1977. “SHAMS” Center stresses the necessity of the UN Special Rapporteurs fulfilling their responsibilities in preparing urgent reports, highlighting violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights to health and exposing Israeli practices in a way that enables Occupation state accountability, which constitutes a kind of deterrence to it.