Seventy-Six Palestinian Hunger Strikers Hospitalized in Critical Condition

Seventy-six hunger-striking Palestinian inmates held in Israeli prisons have been hospitalized due to critical deterioration of their health conditions, as a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners has entered its 30th day.

The Arabic-language al-Aqsa satellite television network announced the news on Tuesday, 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.

Meanwhile, imprisoned hunger strike leader, Marwan Barghouti, has said that he has decided to stop drinking water to express his profound protest at the conditions in Israeli prisons.

According to a statement released by the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs on Tuesday, 57-year-old Barghouti, a former top leader of the Palestinian Fatah Movement, would escalate the protest action in response to Tel Aviv’s persistent refusal to meet the hunger strikers’ demands.

Barghouthi, the statement added, has said that the Israeli regime must agree to all of the demands made by hunger strikers under his leadership without bargaining or making compromises.

Since April 17, some 1,600 Palestinian prisoners, from across the political spectrum, have joined the protest action, led by Barghouti, dubbed the Freedom and Dignity Strike. The strikers are demanding basic rights, such as an end to the policies of administrative detention, solitary confinement and deliberate medical negligence.

The Israeli regime has sentenced Barghouti, a highly popular figure among Palestinians, to serve five life terms in prison over his role in the Palestinian Intifada (Uprising). The Israel Prison Service (IPS) has placed him in solitary confinement since the initiation of the strike.

PRESS T.V

R.S