Abbas asks US to mediate hunger-strikers’ demands with Israel

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says he asked the United States to intervene on behalf of the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails currently on hunger strike protesting the conditions of their incarceration.

“The issue of the prisoners was discussed in depth with US envoy [Jason] Greenblatt to see what the American side can do in this area,” Abbas says, according to a report in the official PA news site Wafa.

Abbas met with Greenblatt, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for international negotiations at the PA headquarters in Ramallah earlier today.

“We explained the issue of the prisoners’ strike in detail to the American envoy, and we hope during the near future to be in contact with him in order to give us an answer from the Israeli side on the demands of our prisoners,” Abbas says of his meeting with Greenblatt at the opening of a Fatah Revolutionary Council meeting.

The PA leader says the Israeli response could be presented as early as this evening or tomorrow.

“The world knows that the demands of the prisoners are humanitarian, and Israel has no reason to reject them,” Abbas says.

According to the PA, over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have reached their 38th day of a hunger strike. Israel says the number is closer to 800.

— Dov Lieber