The reporting on the death of Maysara Abu Hamdieh focused on concern that news of another Palestinian dying in prison would spark a wave of violent demonstrations in the territories. Few wondered why it took six months from the time Abu Hamdieh complained of sharp pain in his throat in August 2012 until he was diagnosed this past February with advanced-stage cancer. Fewer, still, wondered why he was only hospitalized at the end of March, three days before his death.

One can easily imagine the magnitude of public reaction in Israel to a report of an Israeli soldier dying in captivity, heaven forbid. We all witnessed the public campaign surrounding the President Barack Obama visit for the release of Jewish spy Jonathan Pollard, not to mention the Israeli drug dealer who was kidnapped by Hezbollah and freed, several years ago, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

It’s harder, still, to decipher the system that enables a society blessed with collective concern for its sons and daughters to act, at the same time, with such callousness and hard-heartedness when it comes to similar sensitivities displayed by the Palestinians over 4,700 of their sons and daughters held by Israel as “security prisoners.”

While the issue of prisoner releases and conditions of incarceration occasionally arises — but only following a hunger strike or the marking of “Prisoner Day” in the territories — the fate of “regular” sick Palestinians, whose lives depend on special medical care, is relegated to the sidelines, if at all. Last week my colleague Mohammed Suliman described on this site the manipulative use made by Israeli defense authorities of the permits granted to sick Gaza residents and their escorts seeking treatment in Israel and East Jerusalem.