Gaza, July 03: More than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails plan to go on a hunger strike on Sunday to protest harsh and inhuman conditions in Israeli prisons.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the Palestinian prisoners described the strike as the beginning of a fight to defend prisoner rights and dignity against unprecedented measures adopted by the Tel Aviv regime against them, the Palestinian WAFA news agency reported on its website.
The prisoners called on Palestinian and international human rights organizations to support the effort, back their struggle and voice their solidarity with the detainees against their Israeli oppressors.
The Palestinian Authority’s Minister of Prisoners Issa Qaraqe said the inmates in Ashkelon detention center, south of Israel, began a three-day hunger strike on Friday to protest harsh measures enforced against them by prison administrators.
He said the Palestinian inmates called the protest after Israeli guards raided prison cells and forced them to strip while searching their cells under the pretext of a security inspection.
Qaraqe said that the measures came on the heels of a call by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on prison administrators to deny basic rights to Palestinian inmates by imposing individual and collective punishment against them.
On June 24, Netanyahu announced a tougher policy against Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, in an effort to pressure officials of the Hamas resistance movement to release captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured in June 2006.
The Palestinian prisoners — regularly subjected to abusive interrogations, brutal attacks, strip searches and mistreatment — emphasized that the new Israeli measures against them will be met with further, unspecific responses.
——-Agencies