A Palestinian who was imprisoned for murdering four Israelis in four separate attacks has died of cancer. According to the PA, Abu Wa’er was himself “murdered” by the Israelis who neglected to provide him with medical care for the throat cancer that killed him. The story – that is, its Palestinian version, is here: “Palestinians Blame Israel for ‘Premeditated’ Murder of Terrorist (and Child Killer) Who Died of Throat Cancer,” Elder of Ziyon, Algemeiner, November 12, 2020:
Cancer-stricken Palestinian detainee, Kamal Abu Wa’er, 46, died today in Israeli occupation jails following a severe deterioration in his health due to medical negligence….
There was no “medical negligence.” Nor was Abu Wa’er’s death a “premeditated crime.” Abu Waer was receiving the best possible care from the Israelis: two complicated surgeries, and six months of chemotherapy and other, ameliorative, treatment for his laryngeal cancer. Had he been released, he would then have received the substandard care the Palestinians provide, instead of the superior care provided by Israeli doctors. It was that difference in care that recently caused the late PLO propagandist and “peace” negotiator Saeb Erekat to insist on being treated for COVID-19 at Hadassah Hospital, rather than at any of the Palestinian medical facilities available to him. Instead of a “premeditated crime” against Abu Wa’er by the Israelis who supposedly allowed him to die without treatment, Israeli doctors did everything they could to save him. But those surgeries, those six months of chemothereapy, are carefully left out of the PLO’s narrative.
Here are the facts of that so-called “medical negligence”: Abu Wa’er was transferred from prison to Assaf Harofeh Medical Center near Tel Aviv and had surgery on his larynx to insert a tube to his stomach to deliver liquid food. That was in addition to another tube that two months previously had been surgically inserted into his neck to help him breathe. He was then given six months of cancer treatment sessions, before finally dying of the cancer. In other words, the PLO’s charge of “medical negligence” was absurd, and Hanan Ashrawi’s claim that Israel was “directly responsible” for Wa’er’s death was – as so many of her remarks are – simply obscene. Nothing was withheld from him; there was no “medical negligence”; he was given the same first-rate medical attention that would be given to any Israeli. And the Palestinians know it. That’s why the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, brought his daughter to Ichilov Hospital to be treated for complications that arose from her treatment in a Gazan hospital. And that’s why Erekat insisted that he be treated for COVID-19 in Hadassah Hospital instead of a Palestinian one.
Here is how Israel should respond to these latest Palestinian calumnies about the treatment, and death, of Abu Wa’er:
