2,000 Palestinian prisoners join hunger strike

By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH - Associated Press | Oct. 11, 2011

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are refusing food
to pressure authorities into providing better conditions in their most
defiant protest in years, spreading through Israeli prisons and beyond.

The hunger strike has rolled through most of Israel's 23 lockups, where
some 5,300 Palestinians are detained with crimes ranging from stone
throwing to masterminding militant attacks.

At least 200 Palestinian prisoners have been on a total hunger strike for
the past two weeks, refusing all food but drinking liquids. Some 2,000
joined the strike overnight Tuesday, said Kadoura Fares, who heads a
prisoners' rights group. He said many of them have already been
participating by refusing to eat three days a week.

Palestinian prisoners' lawyers gave varying numbers. It was not possible
to directly speak to the prisoners.

The strike began as a small protest when an imprisoned Palestinian leader,
Ahmed Saadat, was placed in solitary confinement. The 60-year-old Saadat,
who is serving a lengthy sentence for involvement in the assassination of
an Israeli Cabinet minister 10 years ago, is in poor condition after two
weeks without food, say his associates.

The demands quickly spread to demand other privileges that Palestinian
lawyers said were taken from prisoners earlier this year: taking
university courses, bringing in books and watching Arabic television
channels. They also demand Israeli prisons remove the screens separating
them from their loved ones during family visits, and demand to be
unshackled when they see relatives.

A spokeswoman for Israel's prisons authority said the numbers of prisoners
said to be striking were exaggerated. Sivan Weizman said only 240
prisoners were refusing food and that their health was being monitored.
She said Saadat and other prisoners were placed in solidarity confinement
because they were suspected of helping to direct militant attacks from
prison.

It is the largest Palestinian prisoner protest since 2004, when hundreds
of inmates went on a 17-day hunger strike to demand better conditions,
said lawyer Sahar Francis.

Palestinian prisoners say they have seen their privileges progressively
eroded since Gaza militants captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, in
a 2006 cross-border raid. Families of Gaza prisoners have not been allowed
to visit inmates since then.

Gaza's ruling Hamas authorities refuse to allow the Red Cross to visit
Schalit, and little is known about his fate. Negotiations to exchange
Schalit for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners have repeatedly failed.

The issue of prisoners runs deep in Palestinian society. Most Palestinians
have had a family member serving time in an Israeli prison, and many
thousands have been imprisoned themselves.

The hunger strike has resonated outside of the prisons. On Tuesday
hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated outside the concrete and barbed
wire-ringed Ofer prison in the West Bank near Jerusalem, holding up
pictures of imprisoned family members and political leaders.

Some youths hurled rocks at Israeli forces, who responded with sirens,
tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.