26/10/2026
"I was released today after about four and a half months in detention." Dr. Mazen al-Rantisi, a 71-year-old physician from Ramallah—known throughout the West Bank as "the doctor of the poor"—speaks with a fresh wound on his face, sustained just half an hour before his release on October 25, 2026.
He recounts that a prison guard dragged him toward the release area—his hands cuffed behind his back, his legs bound, and his eyes blindfolded—before shoving him and slamming him onto the floor.
Occupation forces seized al-Rantisi from his home in the Al-Tireh neighborhood of Ramallah in June without providing any reason; his daughter states that he lost approximately 25 kilograms while in their custody.
He describes Nafha Prison as being rife with ringworm, which affects nearly 80 percent of the Palestinian prisoners held there—with virtually no medication provided. When prisoners plead for medical care, he says, the guards curse, mock, and humiliate them. He himself was harassed for taking the chronic medication that the court had ordered he be given.
He calls on international human rights organizations to intervene, asserting that Palestinian prisoners are being beaten and subjected to severe punishment.
