The Israeli occupation court on Monday, August 7, refused an early release request of cancer-stricken Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqah, despite the seriousness of his health condition.
The Lod District Court rejected the appeal by the family of prisoner Walid Daqqah on Sunday, July 9.
“We consider any decision or ruling that does not lead to the immediate release of the prisoner as an authorisation to execute him,” Daqqah’s family said in a statement, Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC) reported.
“The Central Court in Lod issued a decision rejecting the early release of the prisoner Walid Daqqah, despite the extreme danger to his life and the deterioration of his health during the past five months.”
The family also announced that they would continue the legal path by submitting a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court for his release.
Slow killing
In turn, the PPC said that the occupation court’s decision to refuse to release the prisoner Daqqah represents a kind of ”slow killing process’.
It called on all national and international levels to intervene urgently and immediately to release him so that he could receive free treatment and care alongside his family.
Who is Walid Daqqah?
Sixty-two-year-old Walid Daqqah was diagnosed with spinal cancer in December 2022, along with other serious ailments, which left him Paralyzed.
Daqqah hails from the Palestinian village of Baqa al-Gharbiya inside Israel and is one of the most prominent thinkers and writers in the Palestinian prisoner movement. He has a master’s degree in political science and wrote several books while in prison.
He was imprisoned by Israel in 1986 for his involvement in the killing of an Israeli soldier and was sentenced to 37 years in prison, which he completed in March 2023, but Israeli authorities extended his sentence by two years in 2018 on charges of trying to help prisoners contact their families.
More than 4,500 Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, including 700 detainees who suffer from diseases.
