Palestinians say no prisoners quit hunger strike, more joined

Palestinian Authority Prisoner Affairs Minister Issa Qaraqe on Sunday denied claims from Israel that many hunger striking prisoners had quit, saying instead that even more had joined the protest.

The Israeli Prisoners Authority (IPS) said that 184 Palestinian prisoners ended their strike, adding that many of them were affiliated with the Hamas terror group.

An estimated 1,200 Palestinian prisoners, mostly from the Fatah organization and including many convicted terrorists, are on an open-ended hunger strike announced last week in a bid to improve their conditions in Israeli prisons.

Qaraqe has said over 1,500 are participating in the strike.

The PA minister told the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa “that the opposite was true” from the Israeli report — and that more Palestinian prisoners were joining the strike in both the Megiddo and Rimon prisons.

Qaraqe later told the Palestinian Ajyal radio station that a total of 80 new prisoners had joined the strike.

However, a spokesperson for the IPS said just 13 prisoners had joined the strike on Saturday.

Akram Ayasa, the International Relations Director for the PA Prisoner Affairs Ministry, explained in a phone interview with The Times of Israel how his ministry was certain no prisoners had quit the strike.

“If any prisoner had quit, then [the IPS] would return them back to their original places and we would hear about that,” he said.

The IPS has separated the prisoners on hunger strike from the rest of the Palestinian inmates.

However, the IPS spokesperson said that on Saturday night 84 Hamas prisoners who quit the hunger strike were returned to their original cells in the Gilboa prison.

The hunger strike is being led by Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences, after he was convicted in a civil court in 2004 of initiating and planning multiple terror attacks against Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada.

Among the demands made by Barghouti and fellow prisoners are the resumption of a second monthly visit by family members (a benefit that was cancelled by the International Committee of the Red Cross last year due to budget cuts), the prevention of family meetings being cancelled for security reasons, extending the length of each visit from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, and the restoration of academic studies and matriculation exams to prisoners. Other demands include more television channels being available in cells, and the installation of public telephones in security wings.

According to the IPS, a Palestinian man who had a preexisting heart condition was transferred to an Israeli hospital for treatment on Friday. The Palestinian news site Ma’an named the prisoner as Said Musallam and reported that several other hunger-strikers have also been hospitalized.

Barghouti began to call for a strike after talks between prisoners’ representatives and the Israel Prisons Service on improving jail conditions reached an impasse. Those talks began more than a year and a half ago.

Barghouti was moved to solitary confinement, apparently as punishment for submitting an oped to the New York Times without first obtaining the Prisons Service’s permission, a violation of prison rules.

Some 6,500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel for a range of terror offenses and crimes. Around 500 are held under administrative detention, a controversial counter-terror practice that allows for extended imprisonment without charge.

Palestinian prisoners have previously mounted hunger strikes, but rarely on such a scale.

Times of Israel Staff and Agencies contributed to this report.