Gaza supports Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike plan

Hamas leader Dr Ismail Radwan Gaza – Mohammad Habib Hamas leader Dr Ismail Radwan has said Ramallah prime minister Salam Fayyad’s upcoming meeting with the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu was a betrayal to Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.
Radwan said in a press statement on Monday: “The meeting encourages Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.” He strongly condemned the meeting at a time when "Palestine should gather support for detainees and their hunger strike protest against their detention".
Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are expected to go on hunger strikes this week to draw attention to imprisonment without charge and solitary confinement.
The wave is planned for Prisoners' Day on Tuesday, held under the slogan: "We will live in dignity." Around 1,600 prisoners have agreed to take part in the protest, according to Palestinian prisons minister Issa Qaraqi. "The situation inside Israeli prisons has become very dangerous and serious," he was quoted as saying.
Of the 11 prisoners currently on hunger strike, two have refused food for 46 days. Bilal Diab, 27, who has been held under administrative detention since last August, has also refused fluids either orally or intravenously since 8 April, and has lost consciousness a number of times, according to Physicians for Human Rights.
PHR has urged the Israeli authorities to grant Diab's request to be transferred to a civilian hospital and has cited World Medical Association advice that "the body is unable to survive without liquids for more than a few days, and in most cases a hunger striker will die during the first week".
Thaer Halahi, 34, has been held in administrative detention for 22 months, plus for five separate previous periods of between three months and one year. His condition was described as stable but commensurate with a prolonged period without food.
There are around 4,600 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, according to the prisoners' rights group Addameer. More than 300 are held under "administrative detention", meaning they and their lawyers are not informed of accusations or evidence against them, no trial is held, and their term of imprisonment is determined by an Israeli military judge.
Prisons minister Atallah Abu al-Sabah said on Sunday that his ministry had prepared a package of activities and programmes with the participation of the Council of Ministers, Legislative Council, and a committee made up of resistance factions and specialists, in support of the prisoners’ cause on Prisoners’ Day.
Abu al-Sabah said while on the  "Lekaa Ma’a Mas’ou" (An Interview With Official) show organised by state media in Gaza that Palestinian prisoners suffered from ongoing crimes performed by the Israeli administration such as restrcting their movement, raiding their rooms, carrying out strip-searches and handing out solitary confinement in addition to other assaults
He said the imprisoned Abdallah Barghouti, sentenced to 67 years in jail, and Hassan Salama, sentenced to 46 years among others were being tortured and suffered various types of psychological and moral pressure.
He added that the harsh conditions of their imrpisonment was what forced prisoners to go on an open-ended hunger strike. "The Israeli violations even affect ex-detainees who have been freed, and who Israel had pledged not to harm...but a number of them were re-arrested and some deported to Gaza," he said.
He pointed out that prisoners spent their jail terms either in solitary cells or in rooms that lacked basic facilties. "About 1100 detainees suffer diseases such as cancer, osteoporosis, blindness, kidney failure and others," said al-Sabah.
The minsiter claimed that detainees included nine females and more than 180 children, who were also subject to torture.
"Sick patients are tied down in hospitals and are abused by doctors," alleged al-Sabah.
He said: “Prisoners are now engaged in a battle for dignity to exercise their rights granted to them by international law in light of the various crimes practiced against them.
He also said that Israeli authorities were negotiating with the prisoners to dissuade them from going on a hunger strike, stating that his ministry was working to support prisoners and expose Israel's complicity to the world.
He stressed on the need to activate resistance in the West Bank, and to halt security coordination between Israel and Palestine, calling on the youth to use social media to exchange news of Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
The assistance undersecretary for the ministry of prisoners' affairs, Bahaa El Din Madhoun, said the ministry had prepared a number of activities for Prisoners’ Day such as organising marches and ceremonies to convey messages to remind the world of the plight of Palestinian detainees.
Khedr Adnan, the first prisoner to begin a hunger strike in the current wave, refused food for 66 days before agreeing to a deal which should see him released this week after four months in administrative detention.
Adnan, 33, was followed by a woman prisoner, Hana Shalabi, who was released and deported to Gaza after 43 days on hunger strike. Her family home is in the village of Burqin, near Jenin, in the north West Bank.
She considered herself "not deported but freed to Gaza", where she had never been before, she told UK daily The Guardian. "It's a victory for me." But she acknowledged that she had come under pressure from the Israeli authorities to accept the deal and end her protest, amid fears that her life was in danger.
Around one third of the 477 Palestinian prisoners released last October in the first stage of the Gilad Shalit deal were deported to Gaza, 17 for three years and 144 permanently. The Hamas government is now building a new neighbourhood south of Gaza City for them, and is also paying salaries to those not provided for by other factions.
Hamas has said that the only way to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners is by abducting Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips. "If the enemy has not learned, we are prepared to give them practical lessons," Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader in exile, told a conference in Qatar this month. "The only way to free prisoners is by exchanging them for [Israeli] prisoners and leaders."
Hamas leaders inside Gaza echoed the call for militants to step up efforts to seizeIsraeli soldiers.