Tensions are escalating inside Israeli prisons after a series of arbitrary transfers, reported the Handala Center for Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners on 4 August. Kamil Abu Hanish, the imprisoned leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s prison branch, Ahmad Abu Ajamieh and others have been transferred from prison to prison.
These transfers have come alongside raids and attacks on prison sections in Ramon prison, in which prisoners’ belongings were ransacked and torn apart by occupation guards and repressive units. Abu Hanish, 41, was transferred from Gilboa prison to Ramon prison on 2 August.
This came only a few days after a campaign of transfers against prisoners in Nafha prison, which the Palestinian Prisoners Society deemed retaliation against prisoners who joined the mass collective hunger strike in April and May 2017. 80 prisoners in section 4 were moved to other sections, while 40 prisoners in section 3 were transferred to other prisons and 40 more to section 1. Prisoners in Nafha declared that they would take steps of protest if these measures did not stop.