At least nine Palestinians were seized by Israeli occupation forces overnight or in pre-dawn raids on Sunday, 21 May 2017. Among these Palestinians include several prominent activists, community leaders and former prisoners, some who have been highly active in the public actions in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike since 17 April. Nasser Abu Khdeir, Jerusalemite community leader and former prisoner; Eteraf Rimawi, director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development; and Abdul Razeq Farraj, the administrative and financial director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, were all seized by Israeli occupation forces in overnight attacks.
Nasser Abu Khdeir, 55, was just released from Israeli prison after serving five and one-half years in October 2016. He has spent over 15 years in Israeli prisons over multiple arrests and is very active in popular and community organizing in Jerusalem. He has recently been prominent in the prisoner support tents and protests in support of the hunger strike launched by 1500 Palestinian prisoners on 17 April 2017. During his own time in prison he participated in multiple collective hunger strikes and protests, including the 2011 hunger strike against isolation, the 2012 Karameh strike and the 2016 strike in solidarity with Bilal Kayed’s 71-day hunger strike.
Eteraf Rimawi, 41, the Executive Director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development, was last released in July 2016 after being imprisoned without charge or trial for nearly two years, since September 2014. His administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial, was renewed repeatedly despite widespread international criticism of his imprisonment. Rimawi is a prominent human rights defender and civil society leader in Palestine. He was arrested five additional times and repeatedly imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention.
Abdul Razeq Farraj, 55, is a writer and journalist who is also the administrative and financial director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, an internationally-recognized land defense organization that won the United Nations Equator Prize and is a memer of the Via Campesina network of international peasants’ organizations. He has spent over 12 years in Israeli prisons, many of them held without charge or trial under administrative detention. His son Basil has written on multiple occasions about his experience of forced separation from his father, as well as the vision and political framework of Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strikes in Israeli jails.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Nasser Abu Khdeir, Eteraf Rimawi, Abdul Razeq Farraj and all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails! We urge people around the world to join us in protesting for the immediate release of these human rights defenders and community leaders as well as the implementation of the demands of the over 1500 Palestinian prisoners who have gone on hunger strike for freedom and dignity.
The strikers’ demands are for basic human rights: an end to the denial of family visits, proper health care and medical treatment, the right to access distance higher education and an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial.
A number of solidarity strikes have been organized internationally, including a three-day strike in Paris organized by the initiator of the global call for hunger strike, CAPJPO-EuroPalestine. Additional actions have been organized in Edinburgh, Manchester, Brussels, Chicago, Turin and elsewhere. A one-day hunger strike in South Africa included the participation of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and numerous anti-apartheid veterans and former political prisoners.
“Given the critical situation of the Palestinian prisoners and the Israeli refusal to take their just demands into account, an appeal is made to all people of conscience in the world to mobilize in the streets on Thursday, 25 May, by observing a hunger strike to show their solidarity with the heroic resistance of the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike since 17 April,” writes EuroPalestine.
Several cities have already confirmed their participation in a collective hunger strike on this day, including Washington, DC, London, Paris, Sydney, Dublin, Lyon, Nimes and Albertville.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network supports and joins in this call for global hunger strike solidarity actions on 25 May.
In order to join the actions on 25 May – marked as a holiday throughout Europe, the Day of Ascension – contact EuroPalestine at info@europalestine.com. We urge you to also contact Samidoun at samidoun@samidoun.net so that we can include your actions on the global list of solidarity events in support of the hunger strike.
Rasmea Odeh and Oscar Lopez Rivera, Chicago, 18 May. Photo: Christine Geovanis.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Oscar López Rivera and the Puerto Rican people on the occasion of his release after over 36 years of imprisonment. The release of López Rivera is a victory for his steadfast through over 36 years of imprisonment and the commitment of the Puerto Rican people to struggle for his freedom and that of all the Puerto Rican political prisoners in colonial U.S. jails.
His over 35 years of imprisonment for “seditious conspiracy” was in fact targeting him as a Puerto Rican revolutionary against U.S. colonialism, struggling for the freedom of his people. He was targeted as part of a systematic attack on the revolutionary Puerto Rican struggle.
Rasmea Odeh welcomes Oscar Lopez Rivera, 18 May, Chicago. Photo: Christine Geovanis
We also salute the joyous anti-colonial reception for López Rivera in Humboldt Park in Chicago, where he was received by the Puerto Rican community and all strugglers for justice. Palestinian organizers and community activists were a prominent part of the occasion, where, in a particulary moving tribute and expression of mutual solidarity, Rasmea Odeh, community leader and former political prisoner, presented Lopez Rivera with a Palestinian keffiyeh. US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) organizers carried Palestinian and Puerto Rican flags and banners saluting the joint anti-colonial struggle of the Puerto Rican and Palestinian people.
The Puerto Rican movement has long expressed its support for the Palestinian struggle, a support that has been reflected in the current hunger strike of 1500 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Student strikers at the University of Puerto Rico confronting austerity have supported the #DignityStrike, while fellow former Puerto Rican political prisoner Luis Rosa Perez also expressed his solidarity with the prisoners.
“As an anticolonial fighter and former political prisoner, I stood side by side, every day, for the nearly 20 years I and my comrades spent in U.S. prisons, with the hundreds of men, women, and children in the dungeons of Israeli prisons. In addition, I stand today with those who move through the shadows on nightly missions, who give their love, their sweat and blood, for this beautiful cause of freedom.
I thank you for your resistance and your ability to live. You have served as an inspiration to many peoples in struggle. Your ability to love and grow while facing such hatred and destruction nurtures the flames of resistance throughout the world.
The nation of Puerto Rico will continue to struggle against U.S. colonialism and all of its vestiges. Our victories will be our strongest acts of solidarity, just as the victories of Palestinians will nourish our struggle. Thank you for your resistance. We march at your side.”
López Rivera wasted no time in asserting his internationalist solidarity upon his release; not only did he stand with Palestine, he voiced his solidarity with Venezuela in a televised phone conversation with Nicolas Maduro, also on 18 April, and his support for the Black Lives Matter movement. A lifelong anti-colonial struggler, his release is a victory for all peoples of the world struggling for freedom and liberation, and of course for the people of Puerto Rico.
Oscar Lopez Rivera in Chicago, 18 May 2017. Photo: Christine Geovanis
We express our deepest admiration for his sacrifice and his struggle over decades behind bars, without ever conceding on his principles and clarity of vision. Oscar López Rivera is an international figure and symbol of anti-colonial struggle, and a living leader and example for strugglers for justice. On this occasion, we also urge the immediate release of all political prisoners in U.S. prisons, including the prisoners of the Black Liberation movement, Puerto Rican prisoner Ana Belen Montes, Native and Indigenous movements, and Palestinian strugglers like the Holy Land Five. We express our full solidarity with the continuing struggle of the Puerto Rican people for justice and liberation and against colonialism and its imposed austerity. From Puerto Rico to Palestine, the people are struggling to defeat colonialism and free all political prisoners!
On Friday, 19 May, Palestinian prisoners entered their 33rd day of the collective hunger strike launched by 1500 Palestinian prisoners – out of a total of over 6300 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails – on 17 April 2017, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. The strikers are demanding basic human rights, including an end to the denial of family visits, proper medical care and treatment, access to higher education and an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial.
On Thursday, 18 May, the 32nd day of Palestinian prisoners’ collective hunger strike, the Israel Prison Service transferred large numbers of strikers to Beersheva, Shatta and Ramle prisons, concentrating the hunger strikers in prisons that are home to the so-called “field hospitals” created by the prison administration. These prisons are also close to Israeli civilian hospitals. These transfers, however, were carried out via the “bosta” through the arduous transfer process that has been used again and again to put additional stress on the weakened bodies of the strikers in an attempt to undermine their strike.
Moataz Bani Shamsa, via Quds News
At the same time that the mass transfers of hunger strikers continued, Israeli occupation forces attacked demonstrations in support of the prisoners’ strike and an illegal Israeli colonial settler murdered one Palestinian protester, Moataz Hussein Bani Shamsa, 23, from the village of Beita near Nablus.
Israeli occupation forces attacked the protesters and defended the settler who killed Bani Shamsa and injured Palestinian journalist Majdi Eshtayyeh. Ma’an News stated that the army “spokesperson said she was unable to comment on whether the Israeli settler had been detained or reprimanded in any way for opening live fire on the Palestinian crowd.” Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett portrayed the settler who murdered Bani Shamsa, shot Eshtayyeh, and then rammed his car into an ambulance coming to assist them, as the victim. The uninjured settler on Palestinian land was “brutally attacked” by the existence of Palestinians on the road throwing stones against the occupying forces on their land, in Bennett’s words; Bennett then claimed that “any one of us…would have acted” as he did in murdering Bani Shamsa as an occupying settler on Bani Shamsa’s land who got out of his car to shoot live fire on Palestinians.
Bani Shamsa is the second Palestinian to be killed by Israeli occupation soldiers or settlers while participating in protests in defense of the prisoners and the fifth Palestinian overall killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of the strike. Saba Obeid, 22, himself a former prisoner, was killed in Nabi Saleh village by Israeli occupation forces as he participated in a march on 12 May. Colonial settlers on the road near Huwwara in Nablus celebrated the murder of Bani Shamsa by distributing sweets to other settler cars on the road.
Meanwhile, as the prisoners’ strike for dignity and freedom continued, Israeli occupation forces seized at least 48 Palestinians overnight between Wednesday and Thursday in arrest raids throughout the West Bank. In Silwad, near Ramallah, occupation forces arrested seven young men and simultaneously demolished the solidarity tent supporting the prisoners’ strike.
As protests continued in support of the prisoners, marchers near Qalandiya refugee camp in Ramallah were attacked on Wednesday night, 17 May, by Israeli occupation forces, shooting live bullets and tear gas at the marchers. In Jerusalem, a sit-in outside the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross was attacked by occupation forces who seized three participants: Ahmad al-Safadi, director of the Elia Media Group, Mohammed al-Daqqaq and Kayed al-Daqqaq. Areen Zaanin was violently assaulted by Israeli forces and taken to hospital.
As Israeli repression continues to escalate outside the prisons, inside the prisons, the strikers’ health continues to deteriorate. Many strikers are extremely dizzy and fatigues and have difficulty walking or standing, and there are great fears of heart slowdowns or sudden drops in blood pressure. A number of strikers have fainted and some are vomiting blood.
As part of the mass transfer campaign inside Israeli prisons, numerous leaders were once again transferred. Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, fellow PFLP leader Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Hamas prison leaders Hassan Salameh and Abbas Sayyed, longest-held Palestinian prisoner Nael Barghouthi and journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq were all transferred from Ohli Kedar prison to Nafha prison, all in isolation. Handala Center for Prisoners and Former Prisoners reported that the health of Sa’adat and al-Qeeq is particularly fragile and requires hospitalization.
International actions also continued in support of the strike. United Nations officials, including Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk, expressed concern about Palestinian prisoners, especially the large-scale use of administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial, in violation of international law.
In Spain, climber Carlos Blanca displayed his solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners while climbing Aneto Peak, the highest mountain in the Pyrenees, on 17 May.
Photo: Carlos Blanca
Chilean Senator Alejandro Navarro spoke about the case of the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in parliament, urging action to support their cause.
In Belfast, protesters gathered at the famous International Wall where the Irish republican struggle is highlighted in murals – along with a number of murals in support of Palestine – for a protest in support of the Palestinian prisoners, while in London, activists responded to the call for action to pressure the International Committee of the Red Cross by picketing and delivering a letter to the ICRC’s office, demanding meaningful action for Palestinian prisoners.
Photo: Lara Khalidi
In Glasgow, Hellemmes, Belfast, Evry, Chicago, Milan, Buenos Aires, Granada, Sevilla, Manila and Malaga, protests were organized in the last days in support of the strikers. On Friday, 19 May, events and actions are scheduled in Saint-Denis, Brussels, Milan, Cadiz, San Roque, Aravena, Mans, New York City, Berlin, Cagliari, and Copenhagen. A full list of actions around the world is available at the Samidoun website.
Palestinian writer, thinker and previous long-term administrative detainee Dr. Ahmed Qatamesh was ordered on Wednesday, 17 May to three months in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial, only three days after he was seized from his family home in el-Bireh by Israeli occupation forces.
Qatamesh, 63, was last released from administrative detention nearly 4 years ago; at the time, he had been imprisoned without charge or trial for two and one-half years. Between 1992 and 1998, he was the longest-held Palestinian prisoner in administrative detention; his detention was renewed every six months for nearly six years. Since his release, he has been banned from leaving Palestine and traveling by Israeli occupation military orders.
He has been arrested repeatedly by Israeli occupation forces over the years, including in 1969 and again in 1972, when he was jailed for 4 years. He lived “underground” evading capture by occupation forces for 17 years.
His memoir, I Shall Not Wear Your Tarboush, recalls his time in prison as well as the 100 days of torture he underwent during interrogation in 1992. Since his release in 1998, he has become a prominent Palestinian intellectual, writer and teacher; he is the founder of the Munif Barghouthi Research Center.
Dr. Ahmed Qatamesh is now one of over 500 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention. Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable and can be issued for up to six months at a time; like Qatamesh has been on multiple occasions, Palestinians can be imprisoned indefinitely for years on end under these orders. The use of administrative detention in Palestine dates from the era of British colonization in Palestine and has been maintained and extended intensively by Israeli occupation. The call to end administrative detention is one of the key demands of the approximately 1500 Palestinian political prisoners engaged in an open hunger strike since 17 April 2017.
As Qatamesh was ordered to administrative detention, United Nations Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk drew attention to Israeli violations of Palestinian rights through the use of systematic imprisonment without charge or trial. “I am particularly concerned with Israel’s use of administrative detention, which involves imprisonment without charge, trial, conviction or meaningful due process, as well as the possibility of unrestricted renewal of their detention…Israel’s use of administrative detention is not in compliance with the extremely limited circumstances in which it is allowed under international humanitarian law, and deprives detainees of basic legal safeguards guaranteed by international human rights law,” Mr. Lynk said.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces the administrative detention of Dr. Ahmed Qatamesh and demands his immediate release. The targeting of this Palestinian writer and historic, prominent figure of the Palestinian liberation movement who exposed before the world the experience of torture under interrogation in Israeli prison is part and parcel of the ongoing Israeli assault on Palestinian culture and resistance that predates the Nakba. Palestinian writers from Mahmoud Darwish to Samih al-Qasem to today’s young poets like Dareen Tatour have been targeted alongside countless Palestinian intellectuals and academics for imprisonment, especially when their writing and work enters the sphere of the politics of Palestinian national and social liberation. We urge international support and solidarity to free Dr. Ahmed Qatamesh, put an end to the policy of administrative detention and free all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is honored to republish the statement below, from Filipino political prisoners held in one of the most restrictive prisons in the Philippines, Camp Bagong Diwa. These prisoners of the national democratic movement in the Philippines are expressing their solidarity behind bars to the over 1500 Palestinian political prisoners – among a total of over 6300 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails – on hunger strike for freedom and dignity.
Like the message of Irish republican prisoners to the hunger strikers, this statement sends a powerful message of united struggle confronting colonialism, imperialism, Zionism, exploitation and oppression everywhere in the world. The political prisoners of the Philippines are on the front lines of the people’s movement fighting plunder, imperialist domination and brutal exploitation of the land and wealth of the people of the Philippines. Their message of solidarity only underlines the internationalist strength of the Palestinian cause and the importance of this hunger strike not only to the Palestinian prisoners and people, but to prisoners and people’s movements everywhere fighting repression and struggling for freedom and dignity.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes the political prisoners in the Philippines and expresses our utmost solidarity with their struggle for justice and liberation, and with the struggle of the people of the Philippines for true democracy and national liberation. We are honored to struggle together with the comrades of the people’s movements of the Philippines, from the streets of New York City, Vancouver, Amsterdam and around the world, to the international forum of the International League of People’s Struggle. We urge the immediate freedom of all political prisoners in the Philippines and raise our voices together with the people’s movements of the Philippines and Palestine to demand liberation of all political prisoners and to stand together against imperialism, Zionism, exploitation and oppression.
The prisoners’ statement follows:
Solidarity Message of Filipino Political Prisoners in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City, Philippines to the Palestinian Political Prisoners on Hunger Strike May 17, 2017
On behalf of all political prisoners in the Philippines, we salute and pay tribute to the more than 1,500 Palestinian political prisoners, who are on the 30th day of their hunger strike against repressive policies and oppression by the Israeli and US government. We are one with you in your aspirations for freedom and dignity, aspirations long denied to the people of Palestine.
Your struggle is very similar to ours. Like you, we are victims of the worst conditions in jails and the slow pace of justice in the Philippines. We are also victims of injustice – we were illegally arrested because of our political beliefs, we are charged with trumped up cases, jailed or wrongly convicted to keep us behind bars for many years.
Your struggle for basic human rights such as the right to regular visits of relatives, to timely and appropriate medical attention and services, to continue studies and education while in prison, against solitary confinement and illegal detention, are our struggle too. These are rights denied of us, even while international laws exist to protect our rights as detained persons.
Zionist Israel, which is the primary instrument of US imperialism against the Palestinian peoples, has victimized thousands and millions of your peoples. It has caused the denial of homes and lands to the peoples of Palestine, using State terror and brutal wars to impose its hegemony over the political, economic and social aspects of your life as a people. But your continuing struggle is an inspiration to all oppressed and struggling peoples of the world, including the Filipino people who are fighting for national liberation and genuine democracy.
We applaud the support and solidarity extended by peoples all over the world for your hunger strike. We are one with you in this struggle. We will launch a sympathy fast, in solidarity with you, on May 20, 2017, while solidarity street action will be conducted on May 17 by human rights and people’s organizations in the Philippines. We express our unwavering support for your struggle for freedom, as well as the struggle of the Palestinian peoples.
Free all political prisoners! Long live the people of Palestine! Long international solidarity! Long live all struggling peoples of the world!
Graphic by The Palestine Project, based on Naji al-Ali’s Handala
Palestinian prisoners entered their second month of hunger strike on 17 May, as the 31st day of the collective hunger strike began. 1500 Palestinian prisoners – out of a total of 6300 – launched the strike on 17 April 2017 for a series of basic human rights demands, including an end to the denial of family visits, the right to access distance higher education, proper medical care and treatment and the end of solitary confinement and administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial.
Since the strike began, Palestinian prisoners have faced harsh repression upon joining the strike. They are frequently transferred from prison to prison, their personal belongings confiscated. Even the salt that the strikers rely on, with water, to preserve their life and health while on strike, has been confiscated from many prisoners. They have been denied family visits and, frequently, legal visits and leaders of the strike, including Fateh leader Marwan Barghouthi, PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat, longest-serving prisoners Nael Barghouthi and Karim Younis and dozens of others, have been thrown in isolation, all in an attempt to break the strike. Lawyers have only been able to visit 39 of the hunger striking prisoners since the strike began, despite a decision of the Israeli Supreme Court that hunger strikers should have access to legal visits after an appeal by Palestinian lawyers.
On the 30th day of strike, prisoners’ health is declining; strikers are reporting many more cases of severe fatigue, vomiting blood, blurred vision and high weight loss of 20 kilograms and up. However, the strikers have continued to emphasize their commitment to continue until achieving their demands. Meanwhile, 76 prisoners held in Ofer prison were transferred to the so-callef “field hospital” in Hadarim. The striking prisoners have denounced these field hospitals as a false cover when no real medical care is provided and instead strikers are urged to eat food in exchange for receiving medical treatment, with the intention of keeping hunger strikers out of civilian hospitals and out of view. l One hunger striker, Hafez Qundus, was transferred to Soroka hospital with internal bleeding.
Abusive transfers of prisoners, a physically taxing process for their weakened bodies involving hours of transit shackled in hot vehicles and waiting at crossing points, continued; Issa Qaraqe of the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission reported on Tuesday evening, 16 May, that all of the hunger strikers in the Negev desert prison had been moved to Eshel and other prisons.
Karim Younes, one of the longest-held Palestinian prisoners, jailed for 34 years and a strike leader, was transferred from isolation in Ramle prison to isolation in Jalameh (Kishon). This came only two days after he released a letter pledging that the strikers would continue “until victory or martyrdom:”
“From the cells of steadfastness, freedom and dignity in the isolation section of Ramla Prison, we salute you and appeal to you individually.
“We assure you of our steadfastness and determination to achieve victory no matter how long the battle lasts.
“We assure the masses of our people that the news of their solidarity and support reach us despite the isolation and siege, and we firmly believe in the inevitability of victory no matter how fierce the battle gets.”
Meanwhile, Marwan Barghouthi reportedly stated that if the strikers’ demands continue to be ignored and the Israeli prison administration continues to refuse to negotiate with the strikers’ leadership, he will begin a strike from drinking water.
Syrian hunger striker in Israeli prisons, Sidqi al-Maqt of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights, was sentenced to 14 years in Israeli prison on Tuesday, 16 May. Al-Maqt, who previously spent 27 years in Israeli prisons before his release in 2012, was re-arrested in 2015 by Israeli occupation forces who accused him of spying, for exposing Israeli involvement in the war in Syria by posting photos of Israeli involvement with Syrian fighters from al-Qaeda and other organizations on his Facebook page.
“According to a friend of Maqt’s, the information he posted online highlighted in detail the level of interaction between Israel and al-Nusra, an alliance Israel would not be keen on publicising,” wrote Nour Samaha in Al-Jazeera.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday morning, civil disobedience – as called for by Barghouthi in his meeting with his lawyer on Sunday, 14 May, and echoed in the subsequent call from the National Committee to Support the Strike – escalated. The families of prisoners and activists supporting the hunger strike closed the headquarters of the United Nations in Ramallah in protest, demanding action on the prisoners’ hunger strike and their mistreatment.
Families of the prisoners issued a statement on the United Nations’ role and lack of involvement in protecting the prisoners of the occupation:
We Will Not Accept Our Prisoners as Martyrs
Closure of United Nations Building
Today, the United Nations building in Ramallah is closed due to its refusal to uphold its responsibility towards Palestinians as they remain silent on the Palestinian Prisoners on hunger strike.
For the past 31 days, instead of fulfilling its role in Palestine as the protector of prisoners’ rights and exposing the Zionist crimes, we have only witnessed failure and silence from the United Nations,
Therefore, we hold the United Nations accountable with full legal responsibility in its role as the organization promoting state accountability in human rights law.
As such, we hold the United Nations responsible based on principles of international humanitarian and human rights law.
We demand:
An immediate and urgent intervention to protect the prisoners and detainees that have been on hunger strike for 31 days.
To launch an international investigation of the occupation’s crimes against the hunger strikers in their attempts to break the strike through systematic means of torture and the threat of force feeding.
To work according to its mission and duties as place it as the protector of human rights agreements.
Hold the Zionist entity accountable for its violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, forcing them to comply with the third and fourth Geneva Conventions regarding Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
To call on the High Commissioner for Human Rights to take a clear position on administrative detention as a war crime and crime against humanity because of its widespread and arbitrary nature, as well as for torture of prisoners.
Demand that the United Nations’ human rights organizations force the occupation to allow an international investigations committee to enter the prisons and investigate the situation of the hunger strikers.
We as families of Palestinian Prisoners, express our deep concern about the lives of our sons, fathers, daughters, brothers and sisters who are fighting their battle of empty stomachs for our collective freedom as a dispossessed and displaced nation.
We consider this the first of an escalating series of direct actions against those who continue to be complicit in the Zionist entity’s war crimes until the recognition of the prisoners’ rights and demands.
We salute the hunger strikers that refuse a life of humiliation.
Occupied Palestine
17, May, 2017
As protests escalate, Palestinian Authority police have attacked and dispersed demonstrations for the prisoners on multiple occasions in prior days, especially as civil disobedience, including road blockages, have escalated as Palestinians demand action for the prisoners. On Tuesday, Palestinian Authority police beat protesters, including students, when they marched to the Beit El checkpoint in solidarity with the prisoners for a civil disobedience action. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has refused to end security coordination with the Israeli occupation despite the demand of the prisoners and the National Committee to Support the Strike. Several high-ranking PA security officials, including Majid Faraj, reportedly held meetings with Israeli officials to discuss an end to the strike; the prisoners have emphasized that their designated leadership are the only body that should be negotiating with Israeli forces on behalf of the strikers.
Such actions come as Israeli occupation forces continue to attack prisoner support protests and arrest and injure participants. Dozens of Palestinians have been seriously injured – and Saba Obeid, 22, killed – by Israeli occupation forces as they have protested for freedom and dignity for hunger-striking prisoners.
Global actions are continuing to mobilize for Palestinian prisoners; on Tuesday, 16 May, in Rome, Dakar, Granada and Ankara, supporters of justice saluted the Palestinian prisoners. On Wednesday, 17 May, events will take place in Hellemmes, Evry, Chicago, Milan, Glasgow, Belfast, Buenos Aires, Granada, Sevilla, Malaga and more to support the struggle of the prisoners. A full list of global events is available at the Samidoun website.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges all supporters of Palestine to continue to mobilize, demonstrate and organize in public squares, government offices and outside Israeli embassies, as the prisoners have urged. We also urge participation in the urgent call to action to pressure the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to take a real stand and end its complicity in the violation of Palestinian prisoners’ rights. We emphasize the importance of escalating the global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and the corporations like HP that profit from the imprisonment of Palestinians. We join the families of the prisoners to emphasize that we will not accept that the striking prisoners become martyrs.
As Palestinian prisoners enter their second month of a hunger strike launched by 1500 prisoners – out of 6300 Palestinians held in Israeli jails – for their basic human rights, it is urgent that the organizations and institutions of the world with a responsibility to uphold human rights and protect people living under occupation, colonialism and incarceration end their silence and complicity. In response to the call of Palestinian prisoners’ families in Jerusalem, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is issuing this emergency call for action to pressure the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to end its complicity with the violation of Palestinian prisoners’ rights and take real action as the hunger strikers face an increasing health crisis and Israeli impunity.
The hunger strike has a series of basic, fundamental rights demands, including an end to the denial and limitation of family visits, the right to pursue distance higher education, proper medical care and treatment and an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. Over 31 days of hunger strike, the striking prisoners have faced harsh repression including repeated abusive transfers, confiscation of personal belongings and even the salt they rely on, with water, to preserve their life and health, denial of legal and family visits, isolation and solitary confinement, punitive fines and frequent repressive raids.
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been largely silent in the face of the denial of Palestinian rights and the suffering of the strikers, even as they lose massive amounts of weight, vomit blood and are increasingly unable to stand. It should not be forgotten that the ICRC are also not mere bystanders; it was the ICRC’s action that cut the Palestinian prisoners’ family visits one year ago from twice monthly to once monthly, claiming “budget restrictions” despite Palestinian offers to fund additional visits. The restoration of that second monthly visit is in fact one of the demands of the hunger strikers – one which the ICRC is in every position to implement immediately.
Families of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Jerusalem with youth organizations in Palestine have issued an urgent statement on the role of the ICRC on Wednesday morning, 17 May:
For immediate release and circulation
While Palestinian prisoners in “Israeli” occupation jails are fighting their battle and demanding their rights as political prisoners and human beings. the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) refuses to uphold its responsibility towards our prisoners.
ICRC has always bragged about its neutral nature and role in observing conditions of prisoners, however they remain silent while over 1500 prisoners mark their 31 days of hunger strike living only on water after the prison administrations have confiscated salt from them. This is not the first time where ICRC remains silent when prisoners are on hunger strike and being punished by “Israeli” prison administration. ICRC silence and refusal to meet with prisoners inside their sections and rooms can be only interpreted as collaboration and conniving with “Israeli” occupation forces.
ICRC failure to attend to this cause contributes to the aggravation of the crisis and putting the lives of the prisoners at stake.
Fadwa Al-Barghouthi, wife of prisoner Marwan Al-Barghouthi –who’s on hunger-strike for more than 30 days- said that the Red Cross refused to inform her of his health conditions and only delivered his greetings to her after meeting with him.
Comrade Ahmed Saadat declared to Addameer when they met him “The striking prisoners refused to meet with ICRC delegates during their visit to “Askalan” prison since the latter refused meeting prisoners in their sections and rooms in which they are held.
We reject and condemn ICRC actions, and call on holding them accountable for prisoners’ lives or any deterioration in their health conditions.
#RedCrossConniving #DignityStrike
As Palestinian prisoners enter their second month of hunger strike, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network echoes this urgent call from the families of the prisoners and the youth activists threatened daily with arrest and political imprisonment by occupation forces.
We urge supporters of Palestine, of the Palestinian prisoners’ struggle, and of human rights and justice to pressure the ICRC to take a real stand and end its complicity in the denial of rights to thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.
2) Call your local ICRC Office or Affiliate and emphasize that you are calling about Palestinian prisoners and that you are concerned with the role of the ICRC in Palestine. Tell them: you want to see family visits restored to Palestinian prisoners and that the ICRC must take a real stand to defend the rights of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. See your local office number here: https://www.icrc.org/eng/who-we-are/contacts/ or affiliate locations here: http://www.ifrc.org/en/who-we-are/directory/
3) Write to the ICRC in Palestine. Send them the statement from the families of the suffering prisoners and urge them to restore Palestinian prisoners’ family visits, end their complicity in the isolation of Palestinian prisoners and take a real stand for Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, whose lives are on the line for freedom and dignity. Email Jacques De Maio at jdemaio@icrc.org or tweet towards him at @JdeMaioICRC and email Christian Cardon at ccardon@icrc.org.
On 15 May 2017, a number of organizations came together to rally in Toulouse, France, in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli prisons. For the second time in six days, over 100 people took the streets of Toulouse to urge freedom and justice for Palestinian prisoners.
Photo: Coup Pour Coup 31
Anti-imperialist collective Coup Pour Coup 31 – a member of the Samidoun network – reported that protesters carried a massive Palestinian flag, chanting, “Palestine vivra, Palestine vaincra!” (Palestine lives, Palestine will win), “Free the Prisoners, Free Georges Abdallah!” and “Zionists, fascists, you are the terrorists!” Protesters highlighted the case of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the Lebanese Communist struggler for Palestine imprisoned in French prisons for nearly 33 years. Abdallah earlier waged a three-day hunger strike to support the Palestinian hunger strike.
Photo: Coup Pour Coup 31
The protest followed a similar collective event on 10 May, which also drew over 100 people to rally for the Palestinian prisoners. There are a total of approximately 6300 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails; 1500 launched a collective hunger strike on 17 April for basic human rights, including the right to family visits, to access higher education, to receive proper medical care, and an and to solitary confinement and imprisonment without charge or trial.
Photo: Coup Pour Coup 31
Coup Pour Coup presented a statement at the rally:
It is nearly 30 days since more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners began a hunger strike in Israeli prisons for Freedom and Dignity.
The strikers have been subjected to intense repression: raids by the prison authorities, transfer from prison to prison, isolation, prohibition of family visits and confiscation of salt, the sole substance consumed with water by the strikers.
Several Palestinian leaders have also joined the hunger strike. The secretary-general of the PFLP, Ahmad Saadat, imprisoned by the occupier, participates in the movement along with his comrades. Last Sunday, he and several Palestinian leaders, were transferred from prison to prison in an attempt to break the strikers’ movement.
Everywhere in occupied Palestine and throughout the world, demonstrations of solidarity with the strikers are being organized. We anti-imperialist strugglers in solidarity with the Palestinian people must redouble our efforts to express our solidarity with the Palestinian Prisoners in their struggle against the repressive system of the Israeli state.
The Palestinian prisoners represent the resistance of an entire people facing the oppression of the Zionist state. They represent the path of the struggle against the capitulation of the Oslo Accords, against the collaboration of the Palestinian Authority with the colonial state and for the only just and lasting project: a free and democratic Palestine from the Mediterranean sea to the Jordan river.
Today, on 15 May, Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, the day of the catastrophe, the expulsion of nearly one million Palestinians from their land by the new colonial state. Today they are the Palestinian Refugees. The right to return, a forgotten principle in the Oslo Accords and subsequent agreements, is essential to achieving the legitimate goals of the Palestinian people.
In France, solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners has a particular resonance. Because in the prisons of the French State is one of the 6,300 Palestinian prisoners: Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. Locked up since 1984 for his involvement in the Palestinian resistance, France refuses to release this resister.
On Monday 24 April, Georges Abdallah and his Basque co-detainees and other prisoners went on a three-day hunger strike in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners.
So, intensify our solidarity, strengthen the BDS movement and fight for the liberation of Georges Abdallah! This is the meaning of our fight at Coup Pour Coup 31, a member of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.
Freedom for Ahmad Saadat, Georges Abdallah
And all the Palestinian prisoners!
Palestine vivra, Palestine vaincra!
The hunger strike has several key demands for basic human rights, including an end to the denial of family visits, the right to pursue distance higher education, appropriate health care and medical treatment and an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial.
Abu Sakha is a trainer with the Palestinian Circus School and has worked with the school since 2007; he has traveled around the world with the school and participated in numerous circus tours in Palestine. He specializes in working with children with special needs at the school. However, his international tours and training have been put on hold due to the repeated extension of his imprisonment without charge or trial.
On 11 May, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association reported that an extension of Abu Sakha’s detention – scheduled to expire on 11 June 2017 – has been limited to a maximum of three months, following an appeal by lawyer Mahmoud Hassan. The military prosecutor requested to renew the detention order once more for an additional six months; however, Addameer reported, “the judge agreed to renew the order for three months under the condition of no further renewal.”
One of the key demands of the hunger strike that Abu Sakha joined is an end to administrative detention. He is one of over 500 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under these indefinitely renewable orders. The policy of administrative detention dates back to the era of British colonialism in Palestine and has been preserved and extended by the Israeli occupation.
The campaign to free Abu Sakha has been supported by artists, circus performers and cultural workers around the world, with actions in many countries organized to demand his freedom. Artistic and cultural solidarity for the prisoners has continued, including the #DignityStrike campaign of Decolonize This Place, featuring new art daily in support of the prisoners.
Nasser Abu Khdeir, 55, was just released from Israeli prison after serving five and one-half years in October 2016. He has spent over 15 years in Israeli prisons over multiple arrests and is very active in popular and community organizing in Jerusalem. He has recently been prominent in the prisoner support tents and protests in support of the hunger strike launched by 1500 Palestinian prisoners on 17 April 2017. During his own time in prison he participated in multiple collective hunger strikes and protests, including the 2011 hunger strike against isolation, the 2012 Karameh strike and the 2016 strike in solidarity with Bilal Kayed’s 71-day hunger strike.
Eteraf Rimawi, 41, the Executive Director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development, was last released in July 2016 after being imprisoned without charge or trial for nearly two years, since September 2014. His administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial, was renewed repeatedly despite widespread international criticism of his imprisonment. Rimawi is a prominent human rights defender and civil society leader in Palestine. He was arrested five additional times and repeatedly imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention.
Abdul Razeq Farraj, 55, is a writer and journalist who is also the administrative and financial director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, an internationally-recognized land defense organization that won the United Nations Equator Prize and is a memer of the Via Campesina network of international peasants’ organizations. He has spent over 12 years in Israeli prisons, many of them held without charge or trial under administrative detention. His son Basil has written on multiple occasions about his experience of forced separation from his father, as well as the vision and political framework of Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strikes in Israeli jails.
Internationalist activists and organizers issued a call for a 
Palestinian writer, thinker and previous long-term administrative detainee 
Palestinian circus performer 