PALESTINIAN prisoners held in Israeli custody at the Nafha, Ramon, Ktziot, and Hadarim prisons announced their decision on Saturday evening to go on a day-long solidarity hunger strike today, Tuesday, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
PPS released a statement saying that all Palestinian prisoners held in the four prisons would go on hunger strike on August 16 to express solidarity with prisoners Bilal Kayid, the Balboul brothers, and others who have been on open hunger strike for several weeks.
The statement added that Tuesday’s hunger strike would also be in protest against recent decisions to place restrictions on family visits and to ban the Ma’an TV channel from playing inside Israeli prisons.
A number of solidarity hunger strikes and protests have taken place over the past few weeks across Israeli prisons and the occupied West Bank in order to put pressure on Israel to release a number of Palestinian prisoners hunger striking in protest of being placed under administrative detention – Israel’s controversial policy, used primarily against Palestinians, of detention without charge or trial.
Kayid, one of the most high-profile hunger strikers since Palestinian journalist Muhammad al-Qiq came near death during a 94-day hunger strike, entered the 62nd day of his hunger strike on Sunday, with the Palestinian Ministry of Health warning that death could come at any moment.
A prominent member of the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Kayid was sentenced to six months of administrative detention on the day he was expected to be released from a 14-year prison sentence, and subsequently declared an open hunger strike.
With more than 80 Palestinian prisoners participating in solidarity strikes as of Sunday, PFLP-affiliated prisoners from across Israel’s prisons have faced a harsh backlash from Israel Prison Service (IPS) authorities in the form of raids, confiscation of personal belongings, and forcible prison transfers.
Ahmad Saadat, the secretary-general of the PFLP joined the mass open-hunger strikes in solidarity with Kayid last month, and was immediately placed in solitary confinement by the IPS. Prominent Palestinian journalist Omar Nazzal also declared his hunger strike on August 4, while Ayyad al-Hreimi and Malik al-Qadi have also been hunger striking since July 11 in protest at being held without charge or trial.
A number of sit-in protests have been set up across the occupied West Bank, and have been visited by Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, foreign delegations, as well as the mother and sister of Muhammed and Mahmoud Balboul, who have been on hunger strike since July 4 and 1st respectively, in protest at being placed under administrative detention in early June.
Meanwhile, Walid Masalmeh has been on a hunger strike against his solitary confinement since July 18 and is held at the Eshel jail in Beershebah. Palestinian officials, most notably Hamdallah, have insisted on the importance of a wide popular solidarity movement with the prisoners’ cause, saying that ‘all Palestinian parties must be unified against the Israeli occupation’s violations and confront the challenges that the Palestinian cause is facing’.
Earlier this month, Palestinian and Israeli NGOs – including Adalah, Addameer, the Public Committee against Torture in Israel (PCATI), and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) – issued a call for the immediate release of Kayid.
The statement read: ‘We call on the international community to urge Israel to release Bilal Kayid immediately, to end the harsh, inhuman, and degrading practices that pressure on hunger strikers to end their strikes, and to review the continuous and systematic human rights violations of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, especially in regards to the policy of administrative detention.’
Israel’s administrative detention policy is widely criticised among Palestinians.
They say it has been used to detain family members of Palestinian political leaders, in an extension of several policies that rights groups have deemed ‘collective punishment’ aimed at disrupting family life for Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
As of July, Palestinian prisoners’ rights group Addameer reported that 7,000 Palestinians were held in Israeli prisons, 750 of whom were being held in administrative detention. Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued raids and arrests.
Israeli army forces on Sunday detained four Palestinians from Jerusalem, Tulkarm and Hebron, said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS). It said Israeli forces detained two from Jerusalem, who were identified as Nour Shalabi, a former detainee and teenager Fadi Shaloudi who was sentenced to house arrest for eight months.
In Tulkarem, Israeli forces detained Hatem Abdulatif, 52, and another from al-Arroub north of Hebron, identified as Abdullah Abu Raya, 23. PPS said Israeli forces arrested in the past two days 61 Palestinians, 30 from Jerusalem who were released with a deportation order for two weeks. In Hebron, 25 Palestinians were arrested.
At least 18 Palestinian worshippers were injured on Sunday during clashes with Israeli police, who escorted about 260 settlers on a provocative visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem. About 260 settlers entered the Islamic holy site in groups to perform rituals, following calls by Jewish ‘Temple Mount’ groups urging their followers to break into al-Aqsa Mosque to commemorate the Tisha B’Av holiday.
The Israeli incursion in al-Aqsa, Islam’s third holiest place, provoked tension with Palestinian worshippers, who protested and chanted religious slogans in defiance of the settlers. Israeli police then chased the worshippers and assaulted them, injuring about 18 of them.
According to Doctor al-Sarkheh who works at the compound’s medical clinic, Israeli forces interrogated him to identify three injured Palestinians, who were taken to a hospital for treatment after being beaten by Israeli soldiers. Two were identified as Nasser Qawas, the head of Palestinian Prisoners’ Society in Jerusalem, and his son Jehad. The third remained unidentified.
Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani said: ‘We deny Israel’s claim that these raids are just visits and tourism. Israeli settlers are constantly raiding the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to provoke the Muslim worshippers by practicing prayers and rituals in a holy place for Muslims only. Israel is violating all international regulations by its procedures in Al-Aqsa compound.’
He added that the Jordanian ambassador and the Jordanian Waqf, which has custodianship over the compound, were informed of Sunday’s incident. Last year, tension ran high across the West Bank, including Jerusalem, against the backdrop of Israel’s repeated assaults on the Mosque, including attempts to enforce a unilateral temporal division of the Islamic holy site between Muslims and Jews.
Prior to unrest in early October 2015, the Euro Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor pointed out in a report that Israeli incitement and violations against Arabs in Jerusalem have increased dramatically in 2015.
The report, titled ‘Fire under the Ashes: Provoking Muslims in Jerusalem,’ warned that Israeli incitement against Muslims could trigger a conflict that would likely result in disastrous consequences.
‘Among the provocative acts documented by Euro-Med researchers against Palestinians in Jerusalem were performance of Talmudic prayers near Muslim worshippers, beating, throwing rubbish, cursing, death threats and preventing worshippers from reaching the mosque,’ the report said.