WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Palestinian prisoner groups announced on Thursday plans to protest against what they describe as escalating repression by the Zionist prison authorities.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), an umbrella advocacy group, said inmates refused to leave their cells for daily checks and to go to the prison yards for a fifth day this week amid mounting tensions.
Prisoners have also announced the dissolution of their representative bodies that coordinate with jail authorities, meaning that each prisoner is free to do what they want to voice their grievances.
Prisoners say that on 5 February Zionist regime authorities reduced the duration of inmates’ outdoor time, in violation of arrangements already in place.
Previously, prisoners from different sections were allowed to be in the yards together for about six hours a day, divided into two shifts, the first roughly between 8am and 11am and the second between 3pm and 5pm.
Now, both the duration and the number of those allowed outdoors at the same time has been scaled back.
The PPS said specialized Zionist units have been deployed in various wards to control the outbreak of any potential unrest.
Qadri Abu Bakr, head of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Prisoners Affairs Commission, said the recent measures by regime authorities are a continuation of a growing crackdown on inmates.
“The prison administration continues to repress the prisoners and take away what they have worked so hard to achieve over the years, which are simple rights,” Abu Bakr said, describing the crackdown as “collective punishment.”
He noted that regime authorities have increased their “repressive policies” since the September prison break last year, when six members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement escaped the maximum-security Gilboa jail.
In another development, in the latest provocation against the Palestinian people and their holy sites, a group of Zionist settlers have stormed Islamic shrines and vandalized a number of Palestinian-owned vehicles in the occupied West Bank.
The settlers desecrated the holy shrines of prophets Thu al-Kifl, Thu an-Noon and Yosha shrines in Kifl Haris town, north of the West Bank city, Palestine’s Wafa news agency reported on Thursday.
The town mayor, Ali al-Qaq, said that the settlers forced their way into the holy sites under the full protection of Zionist troops.
Separately, settlers threw stones and sharp objects at cars in Salfit-district town of the occupied West Bank, causing damage to some of them.
They also vandalized the vehicles of at least three of the local residents, smashing the windshields of one and slashing the tires of two others.
In another development, hundreds of Zionist settlers stormed the archaeological site of Sebastia, a small historical town located 11 km northwest of Nablus, Palestinian media said.