Palestinians unite for jailed hunger strikers
MEL FRYKBERG AND MA’AN
HUNDREDS of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners entered the third day of the “Freedom and Dignity” hunger strike yesterday, with imprisoned women launching protest measures, as lawyers representing the hunger strikers announced they were boycotting Israeli courts.
Prisoners are demanding that Israeli prison authorities grant them basic rights, such as receiving regular visits.
They are also calling for an end to deliberate medical negligence, solitary confinement, administrative detention, among a long list of other demands laid out by the Fatah movement and its imprisoned leader, Marwan Barghouthi.
Some 1 500 prisoners continued the strike that began on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day – April 17– according to a statement from a joint media committee comprising the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
Lawyers representing the prisoners have decided to boycott Israel’s courts. As Barghouthi noted in an opinion piece published by the New York Times before the hunger strike, the conviction rate for Palestinians in military courts was nearly 90%, according to the US State Department.
The piece has sparked outrage among the Israeli leadership; Barghouthi could face prosecution for writing it, while some members of Israel’s government have suggested shutting down The New York Times bureau in Jerusalem.
Violent clashes have broken out between Palestinian protesters and Israeli troops across the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza as tens of thousands of Palestinians marched in support of the hunger strikers.
Dozens of injuries from live ammunition and rubber-coated metal bullets were reported as supporters from all the main Palestinian political factions, including Hamas, Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and Islamic Jihad took to the streets.
In response to the hunger strike, the Israeli authorities placed Barghouti in solitary confinement.
Barghouti is serving several life sentences for attacks carried out against Israelis during the second Palestinian uprising or Intifada.
Further disciplinary measures by the Israeli Prison Services (IPS) included the forced removal of other prisoners to other jails and the confiscation of their belongings.
Despite the reasons for the hunger strike, the IPS considers refusing meals a disciplinary offence that is punishable by the withdrawal of privileges as well as further disciplinary measures so a war of wills is under way.
Despite the internal bickering and schisms between the various political factions, especially the Palestinian Authority-affiliated Fatah movement and Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, the issue of Palestinian prisoners is close to the hearts off all Palestinians with the result being that the various factions have united behind Barghouti who is from Fatah.