30 administrative prisoners continue open hunger strike for 7th day

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies + Al Mayadeen Net
1 Oct 14:46
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The Palestinian Prisoners Club warns that more prisoners will engage in the open-ended hunger strike in the coming period.

The Israeli occupation Prisons Authority has begun threatening to impose penalties on hunger-striking prisoners

For the seventh consecutive day, 30 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons continue their open hunger strike in refusal of their continued arbitrary administrative detention practiced by the Israeli occupation authorities.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club warned that new batches of prisoners will engage in the strike in the coming period in case the Israeli occupation authorities proceed with the arbitrary detentions.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club indicated that 28 hunger-striking prisoners are in "Ofer" prison, while human rights activist Salah Al-Hammouri is currently in solitary confinement in "Hadarim" prison, and prisoner Ghassan Zawahra is in Al-Naqab prison.

According to the Prisoners Club, the Israeli occupation Prisons Authority has begun threatening to impose penalties on hunger-striking prisoners, knowing that in all cases of individual and collective strikes, the Authority imposes a series of penalties, including depriving prisoners of visits, stripping them of their belongings, placing them in solitary confinement, and deliberately transferring them, in addition to practicing against them methods designed to psychologically pressure and abuse them.

The Prisoners Club called for the need to intensify the popular support for the hunger-striking prisoners who engaged in their strike against systematic administrative detention.

The Prisoners Club highlighted that the number of administrative prisoners exceeds 780 detainees, including at least six minors and two female prisoners, noting the greatest number of them are detained in Al-Naqab and "Ofer" prisons, and that this number is the highest since the Intifada in 2015.

It is noteworthy that since 2015, the Israeli occupation authorities issued more than 9,500 administrative detention orders. At the beginning of this year, the occupation issued about 1,365 administrative detention orders, the highest of which was last August, amounting to 272 arrest warrants.

The Palestinian Prisoners Club noted that since late 2011, prisoners carried out more than 400 individual strikes, most of them in protest of administrative detention, pointing out that more than 80% of administrative prisoners are former prisoners who were subjected to administrative detention many times.

Last week, 30 prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons initiated an open-ended hunger strike, in protest of their arbitrary administrative detention.

The prisoners affirmed in a letter that their fight against arbitrary administrative detention is ongoing and that the actions taken by the Israeli Prisons Administration are no longer based on "security obsessions but on revenge over their failed past."

Georges Abdallah in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners

In the same context, Lebanese freedom fighter Georges Abdallah who is detained in French prisons, announced Saturday in a letter to the director of the French Lannemezan prison that he will engage in a one-day hunger strike today, Saturday, in solidarity with the 30 hunger-striking prisoners.

Georges Abdallah engages in a one-day hunger strike

It is noteworthy that administrative detention is an arbitrary procedure that the Israeli occupation forces use to arrest Palestinians without the need for a specific charge and trial, which deprives the detained and their lawyers of knowing the reasons for the arrest. The administrative detention order is often renewed multiple times, according to Al-Dameer Foundation for Prisoner Care and Human Rights.