Jewish terrorist goes on hunger strike over visitation rights
Florida-born Jack Teitel, serving two life sentences for killing two Palestinians, placed in solitary confinement after launching protest
A Jewish American-Israeli serving out a life sentence for murder in a prison in central Israel went on hunger strike, after he claimed that his visiting hours were reduced.
Yaakov “Jack” Teitel, 42, was convicted in 2013 for a string of nationalistically motivated murders and terror attacks spanning a decade.
Earlier this week, prison wardens notified Teitel his visiting hours would be reduced from one hour a week to half-an-hour every 14 days. The reason for the move was undisclosed.
Teitel began a hunger strike Tuesday along with two other sympathetic prisoners — for which he was placed in solitary confinement Wednesday.
“As long as the Israel Prison Service (IPS) harmed me only, I remain silent. But now that my wife and children have to endure the burden too, I will not remain silent,” Teitel said, in a message released by his relatives.
His family said in a statement that Teitel had started the hunger strike after a request to reconsider the shortened visitation schedule was denied.
“Other prisoners are given holidays. As someone who is prevented from receiving furloughs, visits are [Yaakov’s] prime source of contact with his wife and five children, the youngest of whom is 2 months old,” Teitel’s relatives said in a statement to Israel National News.
Prison officials released a statement confirming Teitel’s hunger strike and noted that his prisoner privileges were taken “in accordance with the orders handed down by the Israel Prison Service,” without stating further reason.
An Orthodox Jew, Teitel moved to Israel from the US in 1999 and made his home in the West Bank settlement of Shvut Rahel.
He was arrested in October 2009 by the Shin Bet security service after an investigation by the organization’s Jewish Department linked him to a slew of murders, attempted murders and acts of terror lasting over a decade.
Teitel’s rap sheet includes the murder of an East Jerusalem Arab taxi driver in 1997 during a visit to Israel, the murder of a Palestinian shepherd also in 1997 — both of which he was convicted for.
He also admitted to planting a bomb in the settlement of Eli in 2006, wounding a Palestinian with a bomb in Beit Shemesh in 2007, placing an explosive device beside two police cars in Jerusalem in May and June 2007, seriously injuring the son of a messianic pastor in Ariel in a mail-bomb explosion in 2008, and placing a bomb at the entrance to the home of Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell in September of that year.
The Times of Israel Community.