Freed prisoner, Amal Jumaah, struggles with death

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The freed prisoner, Amal Fayez Jumaah, has languished in the Nablus Specialist Hospital in the northern West Bank for more than two weeks following a serious deterioration in her health subsequent to her release from Israeli prison. She was released from prison as part of the recent prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas.

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Jumaah has suffered from cancer for many years alongside a range of other diseases and conditions resulting from her captivity including back and stomach problems. The visages of extreme fatigue are apparent on her as a result of the Israeli policy of serious medical neglect suffered by Palestinian prisoners and which results in a multitude of accumulated diseases and conditions.
 
Doctors have confirmed that Jumaah is in a difficult medical situation and is in dire need of sophisticated treatment that would require her transfer out of Palestine. As this is prohibited by the Israeli occupation, Jumaah has announced that she will go on hunger strike until a resolution to her problem is found.
 
Jumaah underwent an ablation operation while in Israeli prison which was carried out while her hands, feet and neck were constrained using metal restraints and which exacerbated her medical condition.
 
Jumaah told of the tragic reality of the lives of female Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli prisons, particularly those who are ill, and asserted that it was a deliberate Israeli attempt to murder them slowly. Jumaah told of how the Israeli doctors would give her addictive drugs that induced continuous hallucination; and that they had extracted the majority of her teeth rather than to treat them.

MEMO Photographer: Ibtehal Mansour