By Palestine Chronicle Staff
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights issued a release yesterday on the occasion of Palestinian Prisoner Day, which was marked this year with the launch of a mass hunger strike in Israeli jails to protest prisoners’ worsening conditions.
PCHR noted that over 6,500 Palestinian and Arab prisoners are detained in the Israeli jails as of today and under cruel and inhumane conditions.
According to the organization, the conditions of prisoners have worsened liked never before with violations against prisoners on the increase.
“These prisoners are regularly subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including torture; denial of family visitation; naked search; night raids; solitary confinement; medical negligence; denial of education under a decision issued by the Israeli Prison Service on 20 July 2011; applying the force-feeding law against prisoners on hunger strike; in addition to other violations falling within the Israeli policy against Palestinian prisoners,” PCHR noted.
On the #Palestinian Prisoners' Day, Prisoners' Suffering in Israeli Jails Continueshttps://t.co/MZVYzo20yX #PalestinianPrisonersDay
— PCHR (@pchrgaza) April 17, 2017
It further stated that, for this reason, Palestinian prisoners have resorted to their only choice: fighting with their empty stomachs to gain their basic rights.
“About 1,500 prisoners in a number of prisons and detention facilities has declared starting a hunger strike claiming a number of human demands, the most prominent of which are, inter alia, putting an end to the solitary confinement policy, offering medication to sick prisoners, constant communication with their families, ending arbitrary and degrading measures against female prisoners, receiving magazines and newspapers permanently and the right to education.”
Around 1,500 Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel have launched a mass hunger strike https://t.co/eGRcp1LS72 pic.twitter.com/h3ZmQRDKGg
— Al Jazeera News (@AJENews) April 17, 2017
PCHR drew attention “to the increasing violations committed against the Palestinian prisoners and the poor conditions under which they live in view of the Israeli authorities’ insistence to violate the rules of the international humanitarian law and principles of human rights to which Israel is a state party.”
PCHR concluded by demanding an immediate intervention to end the plight of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and to bring Israel accountable for its crimes against them.
(PalestineChronicle.com)
