JAILED hunger striker Samer Issawi has now stopped taking water after refusing food for 188 days, the Palestinian Prisoners Society said on Tuesday.
A PPS lawyer visited Issawi in Israel’s Ramle prison clinic and said he has stopped drinking water and taking vitamins, and is boycotting all medical tests.
A doctor has informed Issawi that his heart could stop at any time if he stops drinking, the lawyer said in a statement.
Issawi is suffering cramps and numbness and his weight has dropped to 47kg.
Issawi has thanked his supporters inside Palestine and internationally for their solidarity.
The prisoners society called on all Palestinians to intensify their efforts to support the hunger strikers.
On Monday, Palestinian Knesset member Ahmad Tibi visited Issawi and said his health is in a critical condition.
From a wheelchair, Issawi told Tibi he was determined to continue his strike.
‘The only choices I have are to triumph or die a martyr. I feel I am closer to martyrdom, and the battle I am fighting isn’t a personal one as I am seeking to protect national accomplishments achieved within the Shalit deal,’ he said.
Issawi was released in the October 2011 prisoner swap agreement between Israel and Hamas, which secured the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from Gaza.
But he was rearrested on July 7th and accused of violating the terms of his release by leaving Jerusalem. Israeli prosecutors are seeking to cancel his amnesty and detain him for 20 years – the remainder of his previous sentence.
Issawi told Tibi he is willing to be tried in a magistrates’ court and to serve a short sentence for entering areas ‘which are in the first place part of my homeland,’ but he will not agree to serve another 20 years in Israeli jails.
Tibi told him he had contacted Arab and international officials and human rights groups to lobby for his release.
‘We want you alive between us so you can continue to fight for your people and homeland, and we are looking forward to visiting you at home after you triumph in this hunger strike God willing,’ he told Issawi.
On Monday, activists gathered outside Ramle prison to demonstrate in solidarity with Issawi and other prisoners on hunger strike.
l Israeli police on Sunday detained two young girls and their grandmother after denying them permission to visit the children’s jailed father, the Palestinian prisoners society said.
Hala Khanfar, seven, and Jana Khanfar, eight, were detained with their grandmother while trying to visit their father Rami Khanfar in Israel’s Negev prison, their uncle told the society.
The children, from Nablus in the northern West Bank, were held until 1.00am on Monday, when they were handed to Palestinian security officials in the southern city of Hebron. They spent the night in Hebron at the home of the head of a local committee for prisoners’ families.
Their grandmother remains in Israeli custody.
The governor of Hebron, Kamil Hmeid, strongly denounced the arrests, calling on local and international organisations to document Israeli violations against children.
Rami Khanfar is serving a 15-year sentence in an Israeli jail.
l The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) will pay public sector workers the remainder of overdue December salaries today, the PNA finance minister has said.
Nabil Qassis said in a statement that this is the last overdue payment of salaries from 2012 and the ministry will do its best to pay public sector wages in 2013. PNA employees, teachers, and healthcare workers have taken strike action throughout January in protest against the late payment of salaries by the PNA.
Israel said last Wednesday it would give the PNA around 100m dollars in tax revenues that had been withheld in retaliation for Palestine’s statehood vote at the United Nations in November.
The tax seizure compounded the government’s worsening financial crisis.
Full salaries for public sector workers have not been paid in almost three months and government initiatives to increase revenue by collecting years worth of electricity and water bills from the public have been hampered by street protests.
Israel has previously frozen payments to the PNA during times of heightened security and diplomatic tensions, provoking strong international criticism, such as when the UN cultural body UNESCO granted the Palestinians full membership a year ago.
On February 3rd Palestinian Labour Minister Ahmad Majdalani denied reports that he’d said the government would be able to pay salaries for a month and a half.
He also said that ‘with the means at its disposal at present, the government is now able to manage the financial crisis’.
Meanwhile, Jordan and Qatar are reportedly exerting pressure on President Abbas to accept Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal as the PLO chief.
‘Well-informed Jordanian sources’ are being quoted as saying that Jordan and Qatar have been exerting ‘intense pressure’ on President Mahmud Abbas to agree that Hamas Political Bureau chief Mishaal assumes the leadership of the PLO.
The sources add that Jordan and Qatar are also trying to persuade Abbas to carry out ‘extensive’ reforms in the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the PLO Executive Committee ‘so as to enable the Arab countries to assist the PNA, particularly in light of the changes sweeping across many Arab countries.’
The sources further note that ‘the meetings Mishaal has held with King Abdallah II of Jordan and the Emir of Qatar, Hamad Bin Khalifah Al Thani, are preparations for the next phase,’ adding that ‘Doha and Amman view Mishaal as the strongest candidate to lead the PLO.’
In closing, the sources stress that Abbas has still not reacted to the Arab pressure, adding that ‘the Jordanian King and the Emir of Qatar are waiting to see the measures President Mahmud Abbas will adopt in the near future.’