Palestinian inmates in Israel go on mass fast
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HUNDREDS of Palestinians in Israeli prisons launched a hunger strike yesterday, in what their leader behind bars called a new step in the Palestinians’ “long walk to freedom.”
More than 1,500 of about 6,500 Palestinians held by Israel joined the open-ended protest, Palestinian activists said, the largest such strike in five years. The hunger strikers’ immediate demands included better conditions, more contact with relatives, and an end to Israel’s practice of detentions without trial.
In the West Bank and Gaza, thousands staged solidarity marches yesterday to mark Prisoners’ Day in the Palestinian areas.
The hunger strike was led by Marwan Barghouti, a prominent figure in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement. Successive polls have indicated that Barghouti is the most popular choice among Palestinians to succeed Abbas , 82, who has refused to groom a political heir.
Barghouti was arrested in 2002 for his role in a violent Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation and is serving multiple life terms.
In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Barghouti wrote that Israeli prisons have become the “cradle of a lasting movement for Palestinian self-determination.”
“This new hunger strike will demonstrate once more that the prisoners’ movement is the compass that guides our struggle, the struggle for Freedom and Dignity, the name we have chosen for this new step in our long walk to freedom,” he wrote.
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