More than 1.000 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails went on a hunger strike today, for the first time in years, following a call from Marouane Barghouti, the leader of the second Intifada, who has been sentenced to life in prison, a Palestinian official said.
"About 1.300 Palestinian prisoners have gone on hunger strike and that number could rise in the next few hours," Issa Karaki, the Palestinian Authority's official in charge of the Palestinian Authority, told AFP.
"According to the information we have at present, 1.500 detainees are refusing to accept food" to denounce their detention conditions, said Amani Saraneh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, a non-governmental organization dealing with territories with the issue of prisoners.
A spokesman for the Israeli penitentiary, Assaf Librati, told AFP that "700 prisoners announced their intention to go on hunger strike yesterday (Sunday)".
This morning, he added, the administration is conducting "checks to see how many prisoners are actually refusing to be fed, because some may be content with a symbolic strike and then start eating again."
Librati did not provide further details, but according to the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, "the prison administration confiscated all items inside the strike cells and began transferring striking prisoners to other prisons."
This indefinite hunger strike takes place on the occasion of the celebration of "Prisoners' Day", which has been celebrated every year by the Palestinians for more than 40 years.
News of the strike is now making headlines in the Palestinian media, with more than 6.500 Palestinians, including 62 women and 300 minors (boys and girls), currently being held captive by Israel.
About 500 of them are being held under the out-of-court system of administrative detention, which allows them to be tried without trial and without charge. In addition, 13 Palestinian lawmakers from various political parties are also being held in Israeli jails.
Barghouti, a staunch opponent of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Fatah, told the New York Times in an article from his prison in Khadarim, northern Israel, that the strike was aimed at "ending abuses." of the penitentiary administration.
"Israel has established a two-speed judicial system, a judicial apartheid that guarantees impunity for Israelis who commit crimes against Palestinians and criminalizes the Palestinian presence and the Palestinian resistance," he wrote.
"Palestinian prisoners are suffering from torture, humiliating and inhuman treatment and medical negligence, some of whom were killed while in detention," he said.
Israel has occupied the Palestinian Territories, such as the West Bank, for half a century. The peace talks that were to begin for the creation of a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel are at a standstill.
Source: RES-EAP
