RAMALLAH (Al Jazeera) – Palestinian prisoners in the Zionist regime’s detention have taken a series of actions against recent restrictions imposed on them by occupying regime authorities, prisoner rights groups said, adding that the measures amounted to collective punishment.
All prisoners are refusing to step out of their cells for their allocated yard time since Zionist prison authorities on February 5 decreased the time and number of prisoners allowed outside at once, in violation of previous agreements between detainees and the jail administration, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) monitoring group said in a statement.
Prisoners have access to an average of five to six hours in the yard, also called as fora, every day, divided into morning and evening shifts. But the duration has been cut down by more than half.
The prisoners movement announced late last week that Friday and Monday would be ‘days of rage’. On Friday, detainees refused to return to their rooms following prayers in the yard. The PPS said authorities sent in special forces as reinforcements for any escalations.
Prisoners are also threatening to hold a one-day hunger strike on Monday.
Thaer Shreiteh, spokesperson for the PPS, said such “punitive policies impact the lives and spirits of the prisoners”.
“The prisoners live within a certain daily schedule – they have reading sessions and certain times for exercise for example. So when the administration decreases the fora [yard] time, the goal is to target daily life of the prisoners,” Shreiteh told Al Jazeera.
He said that “the prison administration knows any shift in the details of a prisoner’s day leads to tension,” adding that it “increases the pressure on prisoners who are in rooms with six or seven other detainees”.
The Supreme Leadership Council of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad prisoners announced the start of a mass protest by imprisoned members of all Palestinian resistance groups and political factions.
The council, in a statement released on Saturday, paid tribute to Palestinian prisoners and declared the beginning of the Third Intifada, stating that the popular and concerted action has started off at Zionist prisons and detention centers, will prevail in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, and will continue until the final victory is achieved.
The statement called on all Palestinians to revolt against the Zionist regime and its prison service.
“Our common enemy is responsible for our captivity ... persecution and poverty. It is responsible for taking our lives and shattering our dreams,” it read.
There are reportedly more than 7,000 Palestinians held at the Zionist regime’s jails. Hundreds of the inmates have been apparently incarcerated under the practice of the so-called administrative detention. Some prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.