Fuad Khuffash, director of the Ahrar Centre for Prisoners Studies, said that the Palestinian prisoners’ movement has given the occupation prison services a deadline of Tuesday evening, January 14, for the release of Ibrahim Hamed from isolation. If Hamed is not removed from isolation, the prisoners will begin taking steps of escalating protest.

Khuffash said that there is great anger among prisoners about the isolation of Hamed, which was done on Thursday, January 9.

Riad al-Ashqar of the Palestine Centre for Prisoners Studies said that the prison authorities are transferring prisoners to solitary confinement in attempt to re-impose the policy of isolation which had been followed prior to the agreement ending the Karameh mass hunger strike in the prisons, which took place from April-May 2012.

Ashqar pointed out that dozens of prisoners had been held for lengthy periods of time in solitary confinement, a form of psychological torture. The end of the tragedy of isolation was a huge success of the prisoners’ strike. He said that the occupation has been trying for several months to gradually re-impose this policy through the transfer of prisoners to isolation cells for various periods of time.

Ibrahim Hamed, on Thursday, is the latest Palestinian political prisoner subject to this policy. However, he is not the first to be transferred to isolation. Nahar al-Saadi of Jenin has been isolated in Ramon prison for over 8 months. Saadi has been detained for 11 years and is sentenced to 4 life sentences plus 20 years. He is suffering from several diseases, including gallstones, kidney disease, and stomach ulcers.

Several Palestinian political prisoners have been transferred to isolation for periods of time under the pretext that they pose a danger to prison security or as punishment for an alleged violation of management decisions, or for a protest against repressive polices. Basem al-Khandakji, Fathi al-Khatib, Sameh Shobaki, Murad Nimer and Mohammed Mardawi have all been subject to this practice.

Ashqar called for human rights organizations to act and demand that the occupation cease this policy of solitary confinement of Palestinian political prisoners and prisoners of war, which is a form of torture. He stated that the prisoners will reject this policy and protest, because the prisoners cannot and will not accept the return of this policy.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Prison Branch issued a statement on January 11 following the isolation of Ibrahim Hamed, calling on “Palestinian forces and factions to build a comprehensive and inclusive national framework to take up and lead the struggle on the ground to confront the occupation assaults against Palestinian prisoners and to activate all means to ensure their liberation.”

The statement said that “current conditions within the occupation prisons must inspire a serious escalation in the forms and methods of mass action in support of the prisoners. The prison administration continues to escalate its methods of repression and attack against the Palestinian political prisoners.”

“The occupation continues its policy of medical neglect of prisoners as a method of punishment and revenge, said the Front, and it is re-activating the policy of solitary confinement and isolation. The latest Palestinian prisoner subject to this policy is the leader Ibrahim Hamed of al-Qassam Brigades.”

Further, the statement said, “These actions come in addition to continuing crack-downs on prisoners’ families during visits, searching, harassing, and detaining them; the occupation has refused to improve the visit conditions for prisoners from Gaza and facilitate visits. Furthermore, occupation authorities are assaulting prisoners and planting surveillance cameras in Ramon prison.”

The PFLP prisoners’ statement concluded by saying that “that these practices of terror against the prisoners are a normal part of the ongoing policy of the occupation state against our people in general.” They called for international action in order to expose the crimes against prisoners and to hold occupation authorities accountable in international courts.

Reports that Palestinian political prisoner and senior Hamas leader Jamal Abu Al-Hija has been moved to isolation alongside Ibrahim Hamed are inaccurate, said Fouad al-Khuffash of the Ahrar Centre on January 12.

An Israeli intelligence officer stated that Abu al-Hija was in solitary confinement to a group of administrative detainees in the Negev prison, in an apparent attempt to intimidate and mislead the administrative detainees, who are planning escalating protest steps.

Ibrahim Hamed, a senior Hamas leader sentenced to 57 life sentences had been held in isolation prior to the conclusion of the Karameh hunger strike in May 2013; he was returned to general prisoners’ population following the agreement that ended the strike. He was transferred to isolation on Thursday, January 9.