Palestinian prisoners preparing for open hunger strike: Hamas official

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Palestinian prisoners are preparing to start an open hunger strike in protest against the violations of their rights at the hands of the Israeli occupation after they ran out of options to reclaim these rights, Hamas official Ismail Radwan told Al Mayadeen on Monday.

"The cause of the prisoners has a national consensus, and it is one of the triggers [that could lead to an explosion] in the region," Radwan warned, stressing that the Palestinian resistance backed the Israeli occupation, holding "Tel Aviv" responsible for any harm to them.

The official outlined the Israeli occupation's aggressive acts against the prisoners and their families, explaining that the Israeli occupation had persecuted them, deprived them of their rights to visitation, and even strip-searched them.

Radwan touched on normalization with the Israeli occupation, saying that "Tel Aviv" was trying to use the world's occupation with the Ukraine crisis to benefit from the "offensive" normalization it had established with certain countries.

"All Palestinian resistance forces reject all forms of normalization," he said, stressing that it posed a threat to Arab and Islamic regimes. "If it were not for normalization, the occupation would not have dared to [violate the rights of] prisoners nor to escalate the arrests campaign in the West Bank."

Radwan concluded by reminding the Israeli occupation that the imposed new facts on the ground following Operation Seif Al-Quds underlined solidarity between Gaza, the West Bank, Al-Quds, and the '48 territories. "Confrontation with the Israeli occupation is on the table, and it will bear the consequences of an escalation."

The Palestinian prisoners had announced a few days ago they would undergo an open hunger strike ahead of the holy month of Ramadan in protest against the oppression and aggression of the Israeli occupation.