WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Human rights activists have shut down the United Nations office in the West Bank city of Ramallah to denounce the world body’s silence on a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in the Zionist regime’s jails as the protest action enters its 31st day.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the campaigners said the UN has shunned its responsibilities and chosen to keep mum on the Tel Aviv regime’s violation of international law.
The UN should take an immediate action to support the hunger-striking Palestinian inmates, read the statement.
The protest rally comes as hunger strike leader Marwan Barghouti is set to stop drinking water in protest against Tel Aviv’s refusal to heed the inmates’ calls.
Since April 17, more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners have gone on hunger strike to demand appropriate medical care and treatment in the Zionist regime’s jails as well as the right to pursue higher education. They are also calling for an end to the denial of family visits, solitary confinement and the so-called administrative detention, which is a form of imprisonment without trial or charge.
In the latest development, seventy-six hunger-striking Palestinian inmates held in the occupying regime’s prisons have been hospitalized due to critical deterioration of their health conditions.
The Arabic-language al-Aqsa satellite television network announced the news, adding that the inmates, who are all kept in Israel's Ofer prison, were taken to Hadrim field hospital for treatment and possible force-feeding.
It added that a day earlier, 36 other hunger-striking prisoners from the same detention center had been taken to the hospital for similar reasons.
Palestinian inmates regularly go on hunger strikes in protest against the administrative detention policy and their harsh prison conditions.
Back in 2012, a similar hunger strike, involving some 2,000 Palestinian inmates, ended after an agreement was reached with Israeli authorities to terminate the policy of incarceration without trial or charge.
Some 6,500 Palestinians are currently being held in the Zionist regime’s jails, 536 of them arbitrarily, according to figures provided by the Palestinian prisoners’ rights group, Addameer, in January.