Palestinian prisoners stage strike inside Israeli jails to protest 'degrading conditions', vow to escalate if demands unmet
Palestinian prisoners stage strike inside Israeli jails to protest 'degrading conditions', vow to escalate if demands unmet
Prisoners are demanding the cancellation of punitive measures introduced by Israeli authorities, including visit bans, human right groups said.
3 min read
The protests might escalate to a full-scale open hunger strike, said the Palestinian Prisoners' Club [Qassam Muaddi/TNA]
Hundreds of in Israeli jails staged on Tuesday a one-day hunger strike, to protest new Israeli restrictions.
The strike was announced in a statement on Monday by the ‘Higher National PrisonsCommittee’, a leadership structure of Palestinian prisoners representing all political factions in Israeli jails, including rivals Hamas and Fatah. The statement, made public by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, signalled an escalation of protest moves in jails, declaring an ‘Intifada [uprising] of the prisons’.
Prisoners have been protesting for two weeks against “, including visit bans, reducing the already-short, one-hour courtyard time, the only time when prisoners can see the sun, and banning them from using the prison store known as the 'cantine', to buy their needs”,Ayah Shreiteh, spokesperson for the Prisoners’ Club told .
Right now, Palestinian prisoners are rising up to resist collective punishment in Israeli prisons through hunger strike and boycotts of yard time and military courts.
— Jewish Voice for Peace #SaveSheikhJarrah (@jvplive)
Shreiteh said that “all these things weregains that , which is why they are protesting to defend the minimum of their rights as prisoners”.
According to the prisoners' statement, their demands are the cancellation of all recent restrictions.
The protest moves include refusing to stand for the morning roll call, , and refusing to go out to the courtyard. Shreiteh noted that “these are initial steps, and prisoners might take their protest, if Israeli authorities don’t respond to their demands, to a full-scale ”.
A spokesperson of Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer, who asked not to be named, told that Addameer had documented “repressive reaction by Israeli jails authorities, such as violently forcing prisoners out of their cells to search them, and placing them in solitary confinement’.
According to Addameer's spokesperson, the restrictions being protested by Palestinian prisoners were introduced in December, after two were put in solitary confinement for protesting random searches. Tensions boiled-up in Israeli jails, leading to a Palestinian prisoner stabbing an Israeli prison guard at the time.
“The occupation’s prisons administration has sought and is still seeking to impose its measures and get rid of the achievements scored by the detainees movement over decades.”
— Samidoun Network (@SamidounPP)
One of the two female prisoners in question is 50-year-old Muna Qaadan. Her brother, Tareq Qaadan, told that “the last time we visited her was two weeks ago, after she had come out from solitary confinement”.
“She said that she had been put in solitary confinement for five days in degrading conditions. Since then, we haven’t been allowed to visit her," he added.
In January, Palestinian administrative detainees announced their in protest against their detention without charges. On Sunday, the state-run Palestinian news agency that some 450 detainees continuethe boycott.
Currently, some 4500 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, including 34 women and 180 minors according to estimates by Addameer. Around 500 of them are held without charges.
Since 1967, around one million Palestinians have been detained by Israeli authorities, in degrading conditions according to human rights groups.
