RESTRICTION SUMMARY: Gaza- 01 June 2023. Palestinians take part in a protest to the support with the sick prisoner, Walid Daqqa, helds Israeli Jails, in front of the UNSCO building in Gaza city

0.1 SOUNDBITE (in Arabic) Member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front, Muhammad al-Ghoul
0.2 SOUNDBITE (in Arabic) Released prisoner, Mustafa Muslimani

STORYLINE:

The decision of the Israeli Prison Service Parole Committee not to consider the request for the early release of the prisoner Walid Daqqa, and to refer him to a special committee is tantamount to a decision to kill him in light of the seriousness of his health condition, today said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).

It warned that this decision adds legal complications to the efforts to have him released in order to get medical attention outside the prisons.

Daqqa, 62, from the Arab town of Baqa al-Gharbia, in central Israel, was detained on March 25, 1986, and sentenced to life in prison, which was later set at 37 years and was supposed to end in March of this year. However, in 2018, two more years were added to his sentence after he was charged with attempting to bring cellular phones into the prison to become 39 years.

During a session for the Parole Committee held in the morning in Ramla prison, the committee claimed that considering the request for the early release of Daqqa is not within its powers, and therefore referred the decision to another committee responsible for prisoners sentenced to life term.

Daqqa suffers from complications from a surgical operation in which part of his right lung was removed. In December 2022, he was diagnosed with myelofibrosis, a rare cancer that affects the bone marrow, which developed from the leukemia he was diagnosed in 2015.

Footage by /APA