Govt will not talk with hunger strikers
JERUSALEM: Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan vowed yesterday not to negotiate with hundreds of Palestinian detainees on the second day of a hunger strike led by popular leader Marwan Barghouti.
More than 1,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons launched the hunger strike on Monday, issuing a list of demands ranging from better medical services to access to telephones.
Issa Qaraqe, head of prisoner affairs for the Palestinian Authority, said on Monday that around 1,300 prisoners were on hunger strike and the number could rise. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club had put the number at 1,500.
A spokesman for the Israel Prisons Service said around 1,100 prisoners started the hunger strike and roughly the same number were believed to be continuing yesterday.
Mr Erdan vowed that Israeli authorities would not negotiate with the prisoners and said Barghouti had been moved to another prison and placed in solitary confinement.
“They are terrorists and incarcerated murderers who are getting what they deserve and we have no reason to negotiate with them,” Mr Erdan told army radio.
He said Barghouti had been placed in solitary confinement because calling for the hunger strike was against prison rules.
Some 6,500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel for a range of offences and alleged crimes. Of those, 62 are women and 300 are minors.
Israel Prisons Service spokesman Assaf Librati said that hunger strikers would be disciplined and later added that Barghouti had been transferred from Hadarim prison to Jalami prison, near Haifa.
Hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners occur regularly, but rarely on such a large scale. Protests were also held in Palestinian cities in connection with Prisoners Day, including one in Bethlehem that led to clashes with Israeli forces.
Barghouti’s call for the strike has given it added credibility, with the 57-year-old serving five life sentences over his role in the violent second Palestinian intifada. He is popular among Palestinians, with polls suggesting he could win the Palestinian presidency. Graffiti showing the iconic image of his cuffed hands raised above his head flashing a peace sign while being led away by Israeli authorities can be seen in the West Bank.
“Decades of experience have proved that Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation aims to break the spirit of prisoners and the nation to which they belong by inflicting suffering on their bodies, separating them from their families and communities, using humiliating measures to compel subjugation,” Barghouti wrote in an opinion piece in TheNew York Times. “In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it.”
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, in a statement carried by official news agency Wafa, “called on the international community to save the life of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails”.
Barghouti’s wife Fadwa said the prisoners’ demands were in line with “international law and recognised as part of human rights”.