Join SWANA collective members as they discuss the plight of Palestinian poltiical prisoners on hunger strikes. They are joined by prison activist Charlotte Kates to discuss the larger context of Israel’s regime of incarceration, its draconian repression of Palestinain civil society, and the work of prisoner solidarity. To declare your solidarity with the six Palestinian human rights organizations under Israeli assault, please visit, share, and take action with this social media toolkit: bit.ly/SharePalOrgsLetter
Charlotte Kates is the international coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a network of organizers and activists globally that works to build solidarity for the freedom of Palestinian prisoners and the liberation of Palestine. She also organizes with Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition and the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and coordinates the National Lawyers Guild International Committee.
Several Palestinian prisoners are currently in grave danger after a lengthy hunger strike in Israeli prisons. Grave concerns have been expressed for the lives of the prisoners by UN independent rights experts, who on Thursday, called on the Israeli Government to completely end the “unlawful practice “ of administrative detention. The five were also joined by a collective hunger strike, involving hundreds of prisoners, and including Mahmoud al-Ardah, one of the six Freedom Tunnel escapees, whose self-liberation from a maximum security jail shook Israel some weeks ago. That strike ended quickly, after succeeding in getting its demands met. Like so many of the 5,000 or so Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prison camps and jails, the hunger strikers are being held on the basis of “classified secret information” that the detainees cannot access or challenge, and they do not know when, or if, they are going to be released. Under Israeli military law, which is in force throughout the West Bank but applies only to Palestinians, not to the illegal Jewish settlers who are colonizing it, a person--including now some 500 children--can be detained and then have their detention extended indefinitely without charge, trial or even reasons given. Over and above the manifest injustice of Israel’s apartheid regime and its carceral system, conditions in the jails are abysmal and Palestinian prisoners have frequently engaged in hunger strikes to improve their conditions.
Five of the hunger strikers, men in their twenties and thirties, have been refusing food for between 58 and 99 days to protest being held in so-called administrative detention for months or even years at a time. Two of the men, Kayed Al-Fasous and Miqdad Al-Qawasameh, are said to be in imminent danger of death. Two other men, Alaa Al-Araj, and Hisham Ismail Abu Hawash, were transferred on October 19 to Israeli hospitals after their health deteriorated. The fifth, Mr. Shadi Abu Aka is currently in a prison clinic. In addition to these five men, there are two more hunger strikers: Ayad Hraimi (on strike for 37 days) and Louay al-Ashqar (on strike for 19 days). While their health situation is less dire, it remains very serious. Both are held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Even as concerns for these hunger strikers grow, Israel is clamping down on the very human rights organizations that have been most active--and most successful--in advocating for Palestinian prisoners and for Palestinian human rights.
