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Palestinian prisoners launch mass hunger strike after prisoner's death

Friday, 10 February 2023 3:20 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 10 February 2023 3:38 PM ]

A man plays the role of a prisoner during a protest in support of Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike in Israeli jails, Gaza City, Gaza, May 9, 2017. (File photo by Reuters)

Palestinian prisoners have started a hunger strike in all Israeli prisons in protest against the death of a Palestinian prisoner due to deliberate medical negligence in a hospital in the occupied territories.

The move prompted the Emergency Committee of the Palestine Prisoners' Movement to announce a state of alert in all prisons of the Zionist regime on Friday morning and three days of public mourning following the martyrdom of Ahmad Abu Ali.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) announced in a statement that Ahmed Badr Abdullah Abu Ali, a resident of Yatta city in the south of the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil, died at Soroka Medical Center on Friday morning.

The 48-year-old Abu Ali, whose family says was suffering from chronic heart health failure, diabetes, and obesity, was admitted to the hospital after his health condition sharply deteriorated.

Palestinian prisoner dies after deliberate medical negligence in Israeli jail: Advocacy group

An independent advocacy group says a Palestinian prisoner had died in Israeli custody due to deliberate medical negligence.

He was detained in 2012 and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

The PPS held Israeli authorities fully responsible for Abu Ali’s death and for the fate of all ill Palestinian prisoners being incarcerated at the regime’s detention centers, stating that his death represents yet another crime that the occupying Tel Aviv regime is systematically perpetrating against Palestinians.

There are reportedly more than 7,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Hundreds of the inmates have been apparently incarcerated under the practice of administrative detention.

Human rights organizations say Israel violates all the rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention. They say administrative detention violates their right to due process since the evidence is withheld from prisoners while they are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried, or convicted.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express outrage at their detention. Israeli jail authorities keep Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions without proper hygienic standards. Palestinian inmates have also been subject to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.

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