New York City protesters gathered on Friday, 19 May outside the Best Buy electronics store in Union Square for a protest in support of hunger-striking Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Organized by Samidoun Palestinian prisoner Solidarity Network, the protest also urged the boycott of Hewlett-Packard (HP) products, including computers, printers and other consumer electronics and supplies. HP is the subject of a global boycott campaign for its multiple contracts with the Israeli occupation military, the prison system that abuses 6500 Palestinian political prisoners and even the Israeli navy as it maintains its siege on Gaza.

Protesters carried signs supporting the hunger strike and distributed leaflets to passers-by with information about Palestinian prisoners, the boycott of HP, and the hunger strike launched by 1500 Palestinian prisoners on 17 April 2017, continuing to this day. The strikers’ demands focus on basic human rights, including 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.

Palestinian prisoners have spent over a month on hunger strike; even as new strikers and prominent leaders have joined the battle, they have faced sharp repression inside Israeli prisons. Leaders of the strike, including Marwan Barghouthi, Ahmad Sa’adat, Abbas Sayyed, Anas Jaradat, Nael Barghouthi and Karim Younis have been repeatedly transferred and isolated. Frequent repressive raids and mass transfers target strikers while their personal belongings – and on many occasions, even the salt that they use with water to sustain their life and health – have been confiscated.

Participants in the protest had lengthy discussions with passers-by, informing them about the situation of Palestinian prisoners. They also chanted in support of the prisoners’ hunger strike and freedom for the Palestinian people. The protesters discussed the widespread international solidarity with the hunger-striking prisoners and the support of other national liberation movements and political prisoner support movements.

One protester, Anne Pruden, had recently traveled to Belfast, and spoke about the numerous events and actions in support of the prisoners and the solidarity between Irish republican strugglers and the Palestinian liberation movement. She highlighted the frequent demonstrations focusing on the prisoners’ struggle and support for the liberation of Palestine, as well as the murals on Belfast’s famous International Wall that collectively highlight Irish and Palestinian liberation struggles and the heroism of political prisoners. Irish republican political prisoners themselves recently issued a statement of support for the prisoners’ strike, while dozens of events have been organized in the past month across Ireland by a number of Irish organizations.

Samidoun in New York City is planning many more actions and events in support of the prisoners’ hunger strike. It is one of the co-sponsors of the event on Wednesday, 24 May being organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement and Existence is Resistance at 6:30 pm in Times Square in support of the prisoners. Samidoun will also rally and protest once again on Friday, 26 May at 5:30 pm outside the Union Square Best Buy, at 52 E. 14th St. All supporters of justice in Palestine are invited to join the protest to show their solidarity for Palestinian prisoners and the Palestinian people.

On 21 May, Palestinian prisoners entered their 35th day of hunger strike in the Strike of Freedom and Dignity. Launched by 1500 of the 6500 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails on 17 April 2017, the strike has key demands that focus on basic human rights, including an end to the denial of family visits, proper medical care and treatment, the right to access distance higher education and an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial.

On the 35th day of the strike, hunger strikers’ health continues to face serious challenges and deteriorating conditions. Hunger striking Palestinian prisoners have been subject to intense repression, including frequent abusive and physically taxing transfers, denial of legal and family visits, confiscation of personal belongings, including the salt that strikers rely on with water to preserve their lives and health, and repressive raids by Israeli occupation forces on a frequent basis.

Meanwhile, the strike’s media committee officially declared that no negotiations have taken place with the leadership of the strike on the strikers’ demands, despite the hunger strike of over one month.  The media committee declared that reports of negotiations are rumors being spread by the Israel Prison Service in an attempt to undermine the morale of the strikers and public attention and support for the strike at this urgent moment.

The Prisoners’ Affairs Commission and Palestinian Prisoners Society noted the desire of the Israeli government to end the strike before U.S. president Donald Trump arrives in the region and is attempting to isolate the strike’s leadership and neutralize its power through avoiding negotiating directly with the leadership chosen by the prisoners themselves.

A number of hunger strikers are experiencing severe weight loss, fatigue, inability to stand, blurred vision and even vomiting blood. While some strikers have been transferred to civilian hospitals, including a group transferred from Ashkelon prison to Barzilai hospital, many more are being held in prisons with so-called “field hospitals” created to hide the strikers from view or public access, pressure strikers into breaking their strike and threaten the strikers with forced feeding.

Former long-term hunger striker Samer Issawi was transferred to the Ramle prison clinic on Sunday, 21 May after the deterioration of his health.  Meanwhile, hunger striker Mohammed Abu Rub told lawyer Khaled Mahajna that 50 hunger strikers are held in Ashkelon prison, where a so-called “field hospital” lacks all medical equipment and only offers glucose to the prisoners who refuse to take it.

Fayha Shalash, the wife of hunger-striking imprisoned journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq – himself a former long-term hunger striker – said that her husband’s health is deteriorating, and that she faces extreme difficulty in obtaining accurate information about her husband’s situation due to the policies of the Israel Prison Service. “There is still uncertainty about the whereabouts of my husband, despite the news we receive about his health….he is one of the most affected among the prisoners in this battle of dignity, because Mohammed has not yet recovered from his first and second hunger strikes,” she said. Reporting what she had been told by a newly released prisoner, she said that “he is a prisoner who has fought two strikes and always calls for collective hunger strikes, so it is not surprising that he participates in this strike.”

Hunger strikers in Ohli Kedar and Eshel prisons issued a message to the world about their continuing strike:

To the masses of our heroic Palestinian people, to the free people and revolutionaries:

We are sending this message with you as we confront with our empty stomach the strongest military power in the Middle East, and we challenge them with our hunger and declare before the world that we will die standing and will not kneel. And we affirm to the steadfast masses of our people that we are continuing our strike until the fulfillment of our just and legitimate demands and that all conspiracies will be destroyed on the rock of our will and steadfastness. The cowardly enemy will see us victorious with the help of God and our will and determination.

To the masses of the Palestinian people…in this moment the jailer practices various types of abuse against us. We call upon all the free people of the world to stand by us and expose this brutal enemy, and we assure our people that we are steadfast until victory.

Throughout Palestine, villages, cities and refugee camps are filled with protests, actions and support tents for the strikers. In Jenin on Saturday, 20 May, former prisoner Lina Jarbouni addressed the participants in the protest tent, urging the escalation of the movement to support the prisoners as they go through this very difficult stage and need popular support more than ever. Jarbouni, freed in April 2017, was the longest-serving Palestinian woman prisoner in Israeli jails. In Ramallah, a women’s march in support of the prisoners included women from villages throughout the area. Saturday events as called for by the National Committee to Support the Strike also included work to implement the boycott of Israeli goods by traders, merchants and people broadly.

On Sunday, various cities conducted a partial strike from 11 am to 2 pm in support of the strike.  On Monday, there is a call for a general strike throughout occupied Palestine – in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, and occupied Palestine ’48 – with participation from the diaspora, with protests starting at 11 am and a one-day hunger strike from 10 am to 10 pm in a national day of anger and protests in response to the presence of U.S. president Trump. On Tuesday, 23 May, the committee is urging marches from the protest tents in all cities and areas, while on Wednesday, 24 May, they are urging night marches in support of the prisoners. The committee is also calling for popular conferences to support the prisoners on Thursday, 25 May and marches to confrontation points with occupation forces after public prayers on Friday, 26 May.

Meanwhile, many Palestinian organizers were sharply critical of the role of the Palestinian Authority in relation to the prisoners’ strike, especially as the PA continues its security coordination with the Israeli occupation despite clear calls for it to end coming from the prisoners’ movement and the Committee to Support the Strike. Abla Sa’adat, Palestinian activist and the wife of hunger striking imprisoned PFLP leader Ahmad Sa’adat said in Sakhnin at a prisoner support tent that PA President Mahmoud Abbas is “wandering from country to country in America, Russia and India as if nothing is happening to our people and our prisoners.”

Palestinian lawyer Muhannad Karajeh of the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association said that arrests of Palestinian activists by PA security services have escalated, particularly among university students and after solidarity activities supporting the prisoners’ hunger strike. Multiple activists arrested by the PA security forces told Quds News that they were interrogated about solidarity actions and social media posts in support of the prisoners’ hunger strike.

International actions also continued in support of the prisoners’ strike. Labor for Palestine issued a call for action from workers in support of the prisoners’ strike. The Union of Palestinian Communities and Organizations in Europe held its fourth conference in Berlin on Saturday, 20 May, which it dedicated to the prisoners. Protests continued in Parma, Montreal, Derry, Thionville, Auckland, Bristol, Paris, Copenhagen and elsewhere in support of the prisoners’ strike. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges further international actions and support for the prisoners at this critical time in their struggle for victory in the Strike of freedom and Dignity.

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.

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.

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.

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.