Palestinian prisoner affiliated with the Fatah movement in Israeli jails released a statement on Thursday calling on “the Palestinian public and activists around the world to support them in their upcoming mass hunger strike planned for April 17th,” Maan News Agency reported.
The movement said: “the strike will continue until the prisoners’ demands are met, which includes improving the conditions of their detentions in Israeli prison and ending punitive policies and fines imposed by Israeli authorities.”
The prisoners stressed in their statement, “it was urgent that [our] cause becomes an Arab and an international one, instead of only being supported on the local and national level.”
Palestinian prisoners intend to start hunger strike in 17 April https://t.co/yRZRQVddUu
— Ali Hussein (@Alihussein_2) March 27, 2017
The prisoners will launch their hunger strike on April 17th, which marks Palestinian Prisoner Day. Marwan Barghouti, a veteran Palestinian prisoner and a Fatah leader, to lead the hunger strike.
According to the statement, the prisoners will also refuse to cooperate with Israel Prison Service (IPS)’s “arbitrary rules” that “violate human rights and international agreements.”
The statement noted that the plan to launch a mass hunger strike came in response to Palestinian prisoners being physically abused and treated “brutally and inhumanely,” at a time Palestinian prisoners have been banned from receiving family visits or being in contact with their families.
According to prisoners’ rights group Addameer, 6,500 Palestinians were held in Israeli prisons as of January, including 53 women and 300 children.
(PC, Maan, Social Media)
