Ramallah: Five Palestinian frustrated women prisoners who remain behind the Israeli bars and were not included in the Shalit prisoner swap deal between Hamas and Israel have gone on a hunger strike.
According to an official statement issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees’ Affairs, the five women prisoners suffer severe psychological conditions, as they lost all hope of possible release.
Prisoner exchange deal
The statement said that the remaining women prisoners in the Israeli jails had been gravely disappointed and angry with the details of the prisoner exchange deal, where all the promises of securing their release were merely empty.
The ministry said that the current hunger strike was due to the shock the women prisoners received after their names weren’t included on the list.
Laywers visiting the women found them extremely angry, disappointed and frustrated.
Psychiatrists dispatched
The lawyers urged the ministry to dispatch psychiatrists to visit the five women prisoners behind the Israeli bars regularly as they stand in urgent need of psychiatric help.
Meanwhile, Women for Freedom Coalition will organise on Thursday two strikes in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip in support of the women prisoners.
The Ramallah strike will be held at Al Manarah roundabout, where later a procession will be organized to go to the Egyptian Embassy to deliver a letter from the women prisoners to the Egyptian authorities who mediated the prisoner swap deal and promised to secure the release of all the women prisoners.
Out of the five women prisoners, three of them are from the 1948 areas including Lina Al Jarbouni, Woroud Qasem, and Khadijah Abu Ayash along with two women from Hebron of the West Bank including Salwa Salah and Walaa Al Ja’abari.
