RAMALLAH, The Israel Prison Services does not allow anyone, including family members, the Red Cross, or political figures, from visiting critically ill Palestinian prisoner in Israel, Nasser Abu Hmeid, today said Abu Hmeid’s brother, Naji.

He told WAFA that no one is allowed to visit his brother at the Israeli hospital he is being kept at, to check on his health condition, “which proves that he is in a very critical condition and the occupation authorities do not want anyone to verify that,” he said.

Fatah Central Committee member and head of the Civil Affairs Commission in the Palestinian Authority, Hussein al-Sheikh, said in a tweet that the Israeli government rejected a request he officially made to visit Abu Hmeid to check on his health condition, holding the Israeli government fully responsible for his life while calling on international organizations to pressure Israel to release him.

Abu Hmeid, 49, from Amari refugee camp in Ramallah and who is serving several life terms in prison for his resistance of the Israeli occupation, was first diagnosed with lung cancer and later said to have lung failure. He is kept in a coma at the hospital in order to get the fluid out of his lungs, which doctors told his family are functioning at only 30 percent of their capacity.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency