Palestinian Detainees To Go On Hunger Strike

Friday September 24, 2010 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Approximately 7,500 Palestinian political prisons held by Israel will start, on Saturday September 25, a hunger strike demanding that Israel halt its violations and attacks against them, and to improve their living conditions.

File - Wissam Nassar/MaanImages

Riyadh al-Ashqar, head of the Media Department at the Ministry of Detainee in Gaza, called on the Palestinian people to act in solidarity with the detainees and to form a lobbying power that boosts the detainees in achieving their legitimate rights.

Al-Ashqar said that the detainees face unimaginable suffering in Israeli prisons, detention camps and interrogation centers, and added that Israel is readying to use ultimate force against the detainees should they hold a strike.

He held Israel and the Israeli Prison Administration (IPA) fully responsible for the lives of the detainees and added that dozens of detainees were recently wounded after being attacked by the soldiers who broke into their rooms and searched them.

Al-Ashqar demanded international human rights groups, mainly the International Red Cross, to intervene and to send probe committees that would observe the illegal Israeli measures and attacks against the detainees.

Furthermore, al-Ashqar called on the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, to withdrew from the talks with Israel as, according to him, such talks provide Israel with legitimacy to continue its crimes against the Palestinian detainees.

Ismail al-Thawabta, head of the Palestinian Center for Defending the Detainees, said that, through their strike, the detainees want to send a message to the world to inform the International Community that they are deprived of their basic rights guaranteed by international law.