Palestinians detained in Israel begin hunger strike

An activist on Palestinian Prisoners' Day About 1,600 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails began a three-day hunger strike on Tuesday to protest against what they say are unfair detainment conditions.  Another 2,300 Palestinian detainees were refusing food for a day, the Israel Prisons Service (IPS) said.
Tuesday's actions were set to mark Palestinian Prisoners' Day, which was held across the West Bank and Gaza to show solidarity with the inmates.
The Palestinian inmates vowed that it will be the most determined hunger strike in decades.
They are protesting against Israel's policy of administrative detention, which allow suspects to be held indefinitely without charge or trial.
More than 300 of some 4,700 Palestinian inmates are currently on those charges.
Administrative detention orders are initially given for up to six months, but they can be repeatedly extended.
Thousands of Palestinians Tuesday rallied across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in solidarity with the Prisoners' Day strikers.However, the IPS said it would not negotiate with the strikers.
"We have coped with hunger strikes in the past and we are prepared to do so again now," IPS spokeswoman Sivan Weizman told the AFP news agency.
The majority of the Palestinian prisoners have allegedly been jailed in Israel for various security offences.Meanwhile, Palestine's Islamist resistance movement Hamas commemorated the eighth anniversary of the assassination of its former leader, Dr Abdelaziz al-Rantissi, who was murdered on April 17 2004, shortly after the murder of his predecessor and the movement's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
The split between rival West Bank-based Fatah and Hamas was reflected in each organisation's prisoners' position towards the hunger strike. Prisoners of Hamas and militant group Islamic Jihad will follow the strike, while Fatah's prisoners have delayed following suit.
The strike will also see the participation of 40 members of the international solidarity campaign "Welcome to Palestine", who were arrested when they tried to enter the city of Bethlehem.
"All Palestinian people are united behind the prisoners' movement. You [prisoners] are not defending your rights only, you are defending the Palestinian nation's dignity too. Today, you are showing us the way to liberate Jerusalem", said the Palestinian Legislative Council's (PLC) Deputy Head, Ahmed Bahr, during the Gaza rally.
The coordinator of the People's Movement for Supporting Prisoners and Palestinian Rights, Nashaat al-Waheedi, revealed the striking prisoners would reject three meals everyday for three days, as they wait for the reaction of the Israeli prisons' administration. Al-Waheedi has also received a message from some prisoners' representative's, stating they would escalate their protests with open-ended hunger strike starting from May 1, if the Israeli authorities chose to ignore their demands.
The Prisoners' Affairs Minister, Issa Qaraqei, also warned of the split between the prisoners over the hunger strike which could result in its failure
"We want this step to succeed, as its failure will bring the prisoners' conditions to an even worse state, as this split between the prisoners could be exploited by the prisons' administration to thwart the strike," said Qaraqei.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) issued a statement calling for massive national and international campaigns in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, saying "there won't be peace or stability in the region unless all the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are freed."
The prime minister of Hamas's government in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said that "working on freeing the prisoners is a national, religious and moral duty", adding that "it is proven that resistance is the only successful way to free the prisoners".
Hamas also commemorated the death of its former leader.
Since Rantissi's assassination, Hamas has never revealed the name of his successor in order to protect him.
On 17 April 2004, Rantissi was killed by the Israeli Air Force, after they fired Hellfire missiles from an AH-64 Apache helicopter at his car. Two others, a bodyguard named Akram Nassar and Rantissi's 27-year-old son Mohammed, were also killed in the attack, and four bystanders wounded.
Rantissi was born in Yibna, near Jaffa. In 1948 Arab-Israeli War, his family fled to the Gaza Strip. In 1956, when he was nine, Israeli soldiers killed his uncle in the Khan Younis massacre. He studied medicine and genetics at Egypt's Alexandria University, graduating first in his class. In 1976, he returned to Gaza to teach parasitology and genetics at the Islamic University.
Rantissi was one of the mot prominent leaders of the first Intifada, that saw the foundation of Hamas. His total detention period in Israeli jails reached seven years, along with four more years in the prisons of the Palestinian Authority, while he was deported to South Lebanon for a year in 1992.