Over 4,500 Palestinian Inmates Begin Action

Date: 22 August 2022 - 21:56

News ID: ۱۰۶۰۵۶

RAMALLAH (Dispatches) – More than 4,500 Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli jails began a series of measures on Monday to protest Zionist steps affecting their daily life in the prisons, the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) said.
The prisoners started their campaign by refusing to take part in security checks on Mondays and to return their meals on Wednesdays. After two weeks, they plan to observe a hunger strike.
The prisoners’ committee, which represents all the factions, decided to take the measures after Zionist authorities reneged on their promises given in March, telling inmates serving life terms that they were going to start making life more difficult for them by constantly changing their cells and transferring them between prisons.
There are currently 4,500 Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli jails, including 31 women and 175 minors.
On Sunday, the occupying regime’s so-called supreme court rejected an appeal to release a Palestinian detainee who has been on a hunger strike for several months to protest his detention without charge.
Khalil Awawdeh, 40, is protesting being jailed without charge or trial under what the Zionist regime refers to as administrative detention. His family says he has been on a hunger strike for more than 170 days, subsisting only on water. A photo of Awawdeh taken by his lawyer on Saturday showed him appearing frail and lying in a hospital bed.

The court on Sunday rejected an appeal by the lawyer, Ahlam Haddad, calling for Awawdeh’s immediate release due to his failing medical condition.
The Israeli military arrested Awawdeh in December 2021, claiming he was an operative for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group — an allegation that his lawyer has dismissed.
Awawdeh is one of several Palestinian prisoners who have gone on prolonged hunger strikes over the past years to protest the occupying regime of Israel’s policy of administrative detention.
Israel claims the policy helps keep dangerous militants off the streets and allows the Zionist regime to hold suspects without divulging sensitive intelligence. Critics say it denies prisoners due process and is aimed at quashing opposition to Israel’s 55-year occupation of territories the Palestinians seek for a future state.
Israel is currently holding Palestinian prisoners, including resistance fighters who have carried out deadly attacks, as well as people arrested at protests or for throwing stones. Around 670 Palestinians are currently being held in administrative detention, a number that jumped in March as Israel began near-nightly arrest raids in the occupied West Bank.
Awawdeh’s family says he has not eaten food since March, when he began his hunger strike. Last week, Haddad said her client’s condition was deteriorating and filed the petition to the Zionist supreme court after an Israeli military court rejected a request for his release.
In light of Awawdeh’s condition, the Israeli military has suspended his administrative detention while he is hospitalized, allowing family to visit him.