WEST BANK (Dispatches) – A prisoners’ rights group says all hunger-striking Palestinian inmates in the Zionist regime’s jails have been transferred to three detention facilities with field hospitals as the protesters’ health conditions are deteriorating.
In a statement, Head of Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs Issa Qaraqe said an estimated 1,300 hunger strikers had been transferred from across dozens of the Zionist regime’s prisons and concentrated into the Beersheba, Shatta and Ramla prisons "due to their proximity to Israeli hospitals.”
The Palestinian activist added that all the three facilities are equipped with in-prison field hospitals set up since the beginning of the strike.
"This step indicates the seriousness of the health conditions of the hunger strikers,” Qaraqe noted.
In an interview with the Palestinian Ma’an news agency, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), however, dismissed the report, saying that only strikers from Ketziot and Nafha prisons had been transferred to Beersheba prison "in order to be closer to central Israel, in the case that they need to be treated at a hospital.”
The mass protest action, dubbed the "Freedom and Dignity” strike, began on April 17 in response to a call by Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian leader. The protesters are angry at inhumane conditions in Israeli prisons.
The strikers are demanding basic rights, such as an end to the policies of administrative detention, solitary confinement and deliberate medical negligence. The much criticized administrative detention is a policy under which Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli detention facilities without trial or charge.
After a month of taking nothing but salt water, many strikers are growing increasingly weak. Reports say they are considering also refusing water since their demands have not been met.
A recent Palestinian media statement warned that striking detainees have "entered a critical health condition,” marked by chronic vomiting, vision impairment, fainting and an average weight loss of 20 kilograms.
The prisoners have also been denied family visits, and face continuous arbitrary prison transfers in an IPS attempt to break up the strike, according to the statement.

Young Palestinian Killed

A Zionist settler has killed a young Palestinian man and injured a journalist in the northern part of the occupied West Bank during a march in solidarity with hundreds of Palestinian hunger-striking inmates in Israeli jails.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed that 23-year-old Mutaz Hussien Hilal Bani Shamsa succumbed to his wounds shortly after the unidentified settler stepped out of his car and opened live fire on him near the town of Huwwarah, located 9 kilometers south of Nablus, on Thursday afternoon.
Palestinian journalist, Majdi Eshtayya, was also injured during the shooting and was transferred to Rafidia Hospital, where doctors described his gunshot wounds as moderate.
Witnesses, requesting anonymity, said Zionist troops were quickly deployed in the area, which resulted in skirmishes between locals and Zionist troops. There were no immediate reports of casualties or detentions.
The regime’s authorities later sealed off Huwwarah, preventing cars from entering or getting out of the town.