AFP:
AT least 1550 Palestinians in Israeli jails are now taking part in a mass hunger strike, Israel’s Prison Service said, with two of them marking their 64th day without food.
IPS spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said that another 100 prisoners had begun refusing food in the last two days, swelling the number of those on hunger strike to 1550 – or more than a third of the total Palestinian prison population of 4700.
Two of them, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla, have been on hunger strike for 64 days, with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR) warning that both were in danger of dying.
Today, the Israeli Supreme Court was to hear an appeal against their being held in administrative detention, a procedure under which suspects can be held without charge for renewable periods of up to six months at a time.
Categories: Asia, Israel, Middle East, Palestine
If you are interested in the truth, please verify the numbers of this poster. I read elsewhere that the true numbers are 300 prisoners out of 1500 prisoners are on hunger strike.
The numbers I just quoted refer to people in administrative detention. They have not been formally charged yet. The others in the article are regular prisoners.
@ jimmy
This is the latest in this regard:
“More than 1,500 prisoners are currently observing an open-ended hunger strike in defense of basic human rights: the right not to be detained without charge, the right not to be subjected to sustained solitary confinement, the right to be visited by one’s family. Two of the prisoners have been on hunger strike for more than 70 days and have been widely reported to be “near death.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/palestine-hunger-strike_b_1506279.html