Palestinian prisoners affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Islamic Jihad are postponing their protest escalation until Tuesday evening, said Mohja Jerusalem Foundation after receiving a letter from the prisoners on Sunday, 3 April.
Over 100 prisoners affiliated with the two organizations were to launch a series of one-day hunger strikes leading up to an open hunger strike against isolation and solitary confinement on Sunday.
A tentative agreement was reached with the prison administration to hold a hearing with Ziad Bseisi, representing the prisoners of Islamic Jihad and to provide a response to the demands of the prisoners: ending the isolation of Nahar Saadi, Munir Abu Rabie, Hosni Issa Khaizaran, and Said Saleh; ending solitary confinement; and addressing overcrowding issues.
The prisoners stated that this suspension does not mean that the protest is cancelled, it is a last opportunity for the administration to respond to their just demands. If the prison authorities’ response is negative, the escalation will continue toward an open hunger strike.
Previous protests by the prisoners of the PFLP and Islamic Jihad began on 24 March, including Bseisi’s three-day strike, and a three-day strike by 30 PFLP and Islamic Jihad prsoners in Megiddo, calling for an end to isolation, arbitrary transfers, and prison overcrowding.
A number of individual hunger strikes are ongoing, including those of Nahar Saadi, Essam Zinedine and Abdullah Mughrabi against solitary confinement, and those of Sami Janazrah, Imad Batran, Abdel-Rahim Sawayfeh and Abdul-Ghani Safadi against administrative detention, as well as Mohammed Daoud’s ongoing strike demanding his release after the five years of his former sentence were arbitrarily reimposed upon him four years after his release in a prisoner exchange.
