Health Crisis Looms Over Palestinian Prisoners held in Israel’s Megiddo Prison

Palestinian Prisoner’s Society 
March 26, 2025

Ramallah, Palestine – A health crisis is looming within the walls of the Israeli occupation’s Megiddo Prison, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) has warned, based on recently received information from both lawyers visiting detainees there and Palestinians who have recently been released from there. 

Megiddo is one of the most notorious prisons for abuse against detainees and the spread of diseases due to extremely unsanitary conditions intentionally imposed by occupation authorities which continues to allow scabies skin disease to infest and affect many prisoners, as well as other health problems. The latest victim of these crimes was 17-year-old detainee Walid Ahmad who was killed on March 24, 2025 in Megiddo prison through medical deprivation and unsanitary conditions. 

Walid Ahmad was one of hundreds of children who continue to be detained across three central prisons, specifically Megiddo, Ofer, and Damon prisons, where all Palestinian minors face similar conditions. According to testimonies gathered from recently released children from Megiddo, most of them suffer from health issues and face harsh and tragic detention conditions.

The occupation’s prison system deliberately deprives prisoners, including children and women, of the basic elements that could stop the spread of diseases, such as adequate amounts of food, water, adequate amounts of clothes, personal hygiene items and general cleaning supplies as well as adequate exposure to sunlight and ventilation. Occupation authorities are intentionally depriving detainees of these basic human rights, making these policies the primary factor in the spread of diseases, specifically scabies, which, if not treated, can lead to death or disastrous health effects. Megiddo and the Naqab prison are witnessing the most widespread forms of this type of abuse. 

The denial of medical treatment has become one of the main tools used by occupation authorities to kill Palestinian political prisoners, alongside the torture, degrading treatment, and humiliation that occurs on a daily basis.

The continued spread of diseases and the deprivation of medical treatment will inevitably lead to more prisoner deaths, the PPS is warning. Not to mention, detainees are also subject to a series of crimes and systematic policies that have become unprecedented in terms of scale and frequency since the genocide began in October 2023, rendering the prisons yet another aspect of Israel’s genocide. 

The Israeli occupation is fully responsible for the killings of dozens of Palestinian political prisoners since the genocide, and for the fate of thousands who remain in its custody, the PPS affirms. We also renew our call to the international human rights system to end the paralysis that has gripped its role in the face of ongoing genocide, as well as the systematic crimes committed against prisoners in Israeli jails and military detention camps. The PPS also calls on the World Health Organization to intervene urgently regarding the systematic medical crimes being committed against prisoners in an unprecedented manner.

Since the beginning of the genocide, 63 identified Palestinian political prisoners have been martyred in Israeli prisons, both with direct and indirect killings, while dozens of martyrs remain victims of enforced disappearances with their bodies withheld by occupation authorities.