For the fifth day in a row, thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons continue their civil disobedience measures against the repression campaign initiated by ultranationalist Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir.
On February 14, the Supreme Emergency Committee for Palestinian Prisoners Affairs announced the beginning of civil disobedience in response to an ongoing repression campaign by the Israeli prison authorities, including reducing the hours Palestinian prisoners can use the shower area to only one hour a day.
Civil disobedience actions by the prisoners include the closing of the different prison sections, stopping aspects of daily life, the wearing of a mandatory brown jail uniform and refusing to undergo the so-called daily security check-up.
According to the committee, the civil disobedience measures will escalate to an open-ended hunger strike beginning on the first day of the upcoming fasting month of Ramadan.
“This strike, bearing the banner of freedom or martyrdom, is a strike that will be undergone by every capable prisoner regardless of what faction they belong to,” the committee said in a statement earlier this month.
“The amount of aggression we have been facing since the start of the year requires all of our people to support us with all means possible.”
Early in February, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation jails issued a message to their people urging them to get ready for a significant uprising against the oppression campaign by Israel’s extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Ben Gvir announced on January 8 his decision to cancel a policy which allows any lawmaker in the Israeli Knesset to visit incarcerated Palestinians in prison.
Ben-Gvir said in a statement that he is set on reinstating an older policy which allows only one MK from each party to visit “terror inmates, or so-called security prisoners,” as Israeli media refers to those imprisoned for carrying out resistance operations.
Since then, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) has begun moving inmates and transferring them between the 20 prisons used exclusively for Palestinian political prisoners.
Approximately 140 Palestinian prisoners were transferred to Nafha in January. The prison is notorious for terrible living conditions, which some prisoners describe as “inhumane”.
Human rights organisations have long condemned Israeli prison authorities for their inhumane treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
Palestinians have been resorting to hunger strikes since 1968 to fight issues such as solitary confinement, denial of family visits, inadequate medical treatment, and other degrading conditions.
Currently, Israeli prisons are home to more than Palestinian political prisoners, including 160 children and some 30 women.
Source: Palestine News & Info Agency