US congresswoman renews call for releasing American boy held by Israel
Progressive lawmaker Ayanna Pressley says Washington should do all it can to ensure the release of teenage captive Mohammed Ibrahim, a US citizen held by Israel since February.
“Right now, Mohammed Ibrahim, a US citizen, is being held in an Israeli prison. His health is deteriorating. The circumstances are desperate,” Pressley wrote in a social media post.
“The United States must use every avenue available to secure the release of this Palestinian American child.”
Mohammed, 16, has been drastically losing weight while in Israeli custody and is suffering from scabies – a skin infection. His relatives previously told Al Jazeera that they fear for his life.
Mohammed Ibrahim
Palestinian Mahmoud Abdullah was 79th to die in Israeli prisons
As we reported earlier, Palestinian detainee Mahmoud Abdullah, 49, from the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, has died months after he was imprisoned by Israeli forces.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society has said that Abdullah was the 79th Palestinian known to have died in Israeli imprisonment since October 2023, noting that dozens more people have been subjected to enforced disappearances.
Palestinian prisoner’s health worsens in Israeli jail due to lack of treatment
Azmi Nader Abu Hleil, a Palestinian held in Israel’s Ofer prison since December last year, is suffering from “severe health complications after contracting scabies … without receiving the necessary medical treatment for more than six months”, Wafa news agency is reporting, citing the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
In a statement, the PPS said Abu Hleil’s condition “has deteriorated critically, as abscesses have spread across his body, accompanied by visible cracks and sores”.
“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,” the report said.
There are still about 9,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Last August, Israeli rights group B’Tselem said in a report that the Israeli prison system was a “network of torture camps” with “frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation; deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation; prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment”.
