Hunger strikes declared in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners

By +972 Magazine October 10, 2011 | Edit

By Diana Alzeer

Youth movements and activists in Palestine and worldwide have declared Wednesday, October 12, 2011 to be a day of both general and hunger strikes in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, who have been undergoing a hunger strike for the last 14 days.

Social media and blogs will also be dedicated to the issue using hashtags such as #Oct12 #RightsPrisoners, #HungerStrike and #HS4Palestine.

Palestinian media reported Monday that many prisoners, including the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Ahmad Saadat, have undergone serious deterioration in their health. Israeli authorities maintain their refusal to deal with the prisoner demands that led to the hunger strike on 27 September.

Akram Mansour, who has been held in Israeli prison since August 2, 1979, and is suffering from a brain tumor, has also undergone a dramatic decline in his health. Israeli prison authorities refused to give Mansour any kind of treatment after he repeatedly fell in and out of consciousness.

Another 460 prisoners recently joined the hunger strike with their jailed peers.

In a phone conversation Monday morning, Ayman Karajeh, a researcher at the Palestinian Human Rights and Prisoners Rights Organization Addameer told me: “the number of prisoners on hunger strike will reach 4,000 by tomorrow and will turn to a complete strike in all prisons if the Israeli prison authorities do not meet the prisoners’ demands.”

Karajeh also confirmed that all the 200 prisoners who have started the strike have been immediately moved to solitary confinement as a punishment for the strike.

Addameer reported that this hunger strike came as a response to “an escalating series of punitive measures” by the Israeli prison authorities. Palestinian prisoners demanded an end to their collective punishment, solitary confinement, forbidding of education and the continued humiliation they receive by the Israeli authorities.

The issue of Palestinian prisoners is a hot subject among Palestinians as statistics show that about 40% of the Palestinian male population in the occupied territories have been jailed at one point or another by Israel. This makes the subject of prisoners a nearly universal experience among Palestinians. There are 6,000 Palestinian prisoners who remain in Israeli prisons today, including women, children, and elderly, and 219 of them who are under administrative detention and without charge.

Diana Alzeer is Palestinian-Bulgarian political and social activist and freelance producer living in Ramallah, Palestine. Twitter: ManaraRam

Email: dalzeer@yahoo.com

This post has been updated, 11 October

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Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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TEST TEST GAL Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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