Struggle veterans join Palestinians’ protest

brothers and sisters in those dark prison cells and strongly condemn the illegal detention of women and children, as well as all political prisoners incarcerated in Israeli prisons,” said the EPPA.

The mass prisoner strike, which began on Monday on Palestinian Prisoners Day, is a demand for improved conditions in Israeli prisons similar to those extended to Jew- ish and non-political Palestinian inmates, and include an end to solitary confinement and detention without trial among others.

“The EPPA calls on all political prisoners and detainees to unite and fight against these draconian laws of arbitrary detention without trial and an end to solitary confinement and demand the following rights, under the auspices of the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross,” they said.

The veterans said a mass, co-ordinated hunger strike was a powerful and le gitimate weapon to use against the Israeli prison authorities in their demand for basic human rights in prison.

The EPPA appealed to the Red Cross, and the Inter national Defence Aid Fund to intervene on behalf of the prisoners and ensure that the Geneva Convention protocol on the rights of prisoners of war was observed by the Israel prison authorities – as was done by the humanitarian organisations under apartheid.

The hunger strike has support across the Palestinian political spectr um. Political prisoners from, and the leaders of, Hamas, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and their supporters are solidly behind the hunger strikers. – ANA