On Wednesday, December 20, a photo began circulating on social media
that sparked sadness, outrage, and fear among Palestinians.

It was a side-by-side comparison of 30-year-old Farouq Ahmad Issa,
before and after a stint in Israeli prison. The “before” photo shows a
smiling Farouq, and by all accounts, a healthy 30-year-old man. The
“after” photo shows a pained, emaciated and gaunt man, reduced to skin
and bones, lying on a hospital bed being caressed by his mother.

The photo of Farouq, his head shaved, hollowed eyes, emaciated body
and sunken face, quickly went viral, with the initial post shared by
Quds News Network reaching well over 8 million views on X. Many people
on the platform compared the image of Farouq to those of Jewish
prisoners who were starved and tortured in Nazi concentration camps
during the Holocaust.

Many speculated as to what caused such a severe deterioration in
Farouq’s condition. Was it torture? Starvation? Medical neglect? All
tactics that have been widely reported by human rights groups and
Palestinians recently released from Israeli custody.

According to his family, Farouq was subjected to everything: beatings,
the deprivation of food, and medical neglect. It was the medical
neglect, however, that they say is what led Farouq to where he is now:
receiving palliative care at a Ramallah hospital, waiting for death to
knock on his door.

“We still can’t really process or understand how we got here,” Husam
Issa, 33, Farouq’s older brother, told Mondoweiss. “We are shocked and
devastated. The doctors told us there is nothing we can do except pray
for mercy from God.”

Thrown in administrative detention

Farouq, a resident of the Ramallah-area village of Abu Skheidim in the
occupied West Bank, was arrested in late August by the Israeli
military. The arrest came as a shock to the family, who had only just
gotten Farouq back home two months prior, after he completed a four
year sentence in Israeli prison.

Farouq was sentenced by an Israeli military court to six months in
administrative detention, a policy that allows Israel to imprison
Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial. The policy is
frequently weaponized against former prisoners like Farouq to allow
Israel to throw them back in prison under closed files of “secret
evidence.” In short, neither Farouq nor his family were told why he
was arrested and put back in jail for another six months.

“For the first month or so of his detention, as far as we knew, things
were okay. His lawyer was in contact with him, and health-wise,
everything was fine,” Husam told Mondoweiss.

But on October 7, everything changed.

After Hamas’s attack on October 7, Israel began cracking down on
Palestinians everywhere, including inside Israeli prisons. Israeli
prison authorities conducted widespread raids, transferring prisoners,
confiscating their personal belongings, limiting their food intake,
and shutting them out from the outside world. That meant no
televisions to watch the news, no lawyer visits, and no family visits.

“All of a sudden, we stopped hearing any news from Farouq and his
lawyer. No one could go visit him or even speak to him. But as far as
we knew, everything was fine,” Husam said.

In late November, after not hearing from Farouq for more than a month,
his family got a knock at their door. It was a young man from the
area, recently released from prison, who had urgent news about Farouq.

“Do you know what’s happening to your brother?” Husam recounted,
repeating the first question asked by the young man, who said he was
in the same prison as Farouq before he was released.

“When we told him that we didn’t know what he was talking about, he
told us that our brother was dying. And we needed to save him before
it was too late,” Husam said.

Beatings and medical neglect

Through information gathered from the young man, as well as Farouq
after he was released, the family was able to piece together what
happened to him.

After October 7, Israeli prison authorities began conducting frequent
and arbitrary prison transfers — a common tactic of collective
punishment used against Palestinian prisoners, meant to tire them
mentally and physically by breaking apart any political groups
organized in prison, splitting prisoners up from cellmates with whom
they may have formed bonds after longer sentences, and by subjecting
them to arduous journeys between prisons.

During one such prisoner transfer from the Ofer prison in Ramallah to
the Nafha prison, located in the Naqab desert, Farouq was badly beaten
by Israeli prison guards along with several other Palestinian
prisoners.

According to Husam, an Israeli prison guard forcefully hit Farouq in
the stomach with what he described as a large iron baton.

It wasn’t long after that Farouq began experiencing a number of
symptoms, including severe abdominal pain and stomach swelling. When
Farouq requested medical care, he was denied and thrown by Israeli
guards into solitary confinement instead, where he was subjected to
sleep and food deprivation.

Farouq’s condition continued to deteriorate, with his stomach swelling
to “the size of a watermelon.” He experienced weakness, vomiting, and
dyschezia, and at one point, he was unable to pass a bowel movement
for several weeks. Farouq began losing weight rapidly, with his family
saying he lost more than 30 kilograms (66 pounds) in the span of a
month.

With his health severely deteriorating, he was transferred to the
Ramleh prison clinic, an Israeli prison clinic notorious for its
medical neglect of sick Palestinian prisoners. There, he was treated
with painkillers. With no real medical care to address his serious
ailments, his health continued to deteriorate.

Eventually, Farouq’s condition became so serious that he was admitted
to an Israeli hospital, the Soroka Medical Center, on November 29. For
several days, he underwent a number of tests and procedures. A week
later, he was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer and began
receiving a number of intravenous drugs to help with the pain. A week
after he received his diagnosis, he was transferred back to the
custody of Israeli Prison Service (IPS) doctors.

During the entire ordeal, Farouq’s family was unaware of what was
happening to him and that he was being diagnosed by Israeli doctors
with terminal cancer.

“We still had no information about him, but every day after the young
man visited us to tell us about Farouq’s condition, we were doing
everything we could to try and reach him or get any information about
him,” Husam told Mondoweiss.

“We contacted everybody. Human rights groups, prisoners’ groups,
lawyers, PA officials — everybody. Just to try and get someone to be
able to visit him and assess his condition.”

According to Husam, every appeal from all the organizations,
officials, and lawyers that contacted the IPS on behalf of the family
was refused.

‘He came back as skin and bones’

After nearly a month of trying to obtain any information about Farouq,
the family got a call from their lawyer on December 20, saying he was
informed by the IPS that he would be able to visit Farouq in prison.

“We were relieved, but then just one hour later, we got another call
saying that Farouq was going to be dropped off at the Nil’in
checkpoint near Ramallah and that we should go pick him up,” Husam
said.

“We were shocked and confused because Farouq still had two months left
on his administrative detention order. And they [Israel] don’t just
release anyone like that,” Husam said, adding that the family rushed
to the checkpoint, fearful of the state in which they would find their
son.

Their worst fears were confirmed when they saw Farouq approaching
them.

“We didn’t recognize him. We were totally shocked. It was a horrifying
sight. He looked like skin and bones,” Husam recounted.

The family rushed Farouq to a hospital in Ramallah, where doctors did
a number of tests to confirm the diagnosis given by Israeli doctors:
Farouq had terminal stomach cancer that was spreading to other parts
of his body. He didn’t have much time left, and all the family could
do was give him palliative care.

“I can’t believe it. Now we are just waiting for him to die,” Husam
said, expressing shock and disbelief held by his family. “When Farouq
left us, he was perfectly healthy. When he returned, he came back a
ghost.”

The family is unsure about what role the heavy beating that Farouq
took in Israeli prison contributed to his health situation. They are
sure, however, that the medical neglect faced by Farouq played a part
in his deterioration.

“For weeks, Farouq was complaining to them about his pain, but they
did nothing. They waited until he got so bad that they had no choice
but to take him to the hospital,” Husam said, adding that the family
believes if he had been treated when he first began exhibiting
symptoms, maybe things would have ended up differently.

“The Israelis did not give him a chance for treatment. They also
didn’t give him a chance to inform his family, nor did they inform us
themselves,” Husam said. “This is a crime — what was done to him and
to us, his family.”

“If it weren’t for his cellmate who was released from prison, we
wouldn’t know anything about Farouq. Maybe he would have died in
prison, and we wouldn’t have known until it was too late.”

Though it is too late for his brother, Husam hopes that the photos of
Farouq will stir something in people and cause them to act.

“I hope after people see these pictures of Farouq, that it will make
the world move, make them take action for the Palestinian prisoners.
Look at Farouq before and after. Look at this crime. I can’t
comprehend it,” he said, comparing the treatment of Palestinian
prisoners by Israel to the treatment of Jewish victims of the Nazis
during the Holocaust.

“The world must open their eyes. Look at what is happening to our
prisoners. It cannot be ignored,” he said. “We don’t want our people
to come back [from prison] in coffins. We want them to come back alive
and healthy. That is our right, and that is their right, too.”

https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/he-was-taken-from-his-home-a-healthy-man-he-came-back-on-his-deathbed/

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