Ramallah: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned yesterday of a "national disaster" if any of the 1,550 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails were to die.
Abbas spoke as two of the hunger strikers, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla, entered their 75th day without eating, and after international rights groups and governments said they were concerned that prisoners could die if they continued to refuse food.
"The situation of the prisoners is extremely dangerous," Abbas told a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee.
"Some of them face real harm, and that would be a national disaster that no one can tolerate. I hope and pray to God that no one gets hurt because it would be a major disaster."
The committee called on all Palestinians to observe a one-day fast today in solidarity with the prisoners.
Addressing a press conference here after the meeting of the Palestinian leadership including the PLO Executive Committee, Fatah Central Committee and other Palestinian factions, Yasser Abd Rabbo, the PLO Secretary-General, said that the Palestinian leadership expects Palestinians living in Palestinian Territories and the diaspora to fast, sending a message to the Palestinian prisoners that all their compatriots express full support to them.
"We call on the UN and the human rights institutions to act immediately and with no delay in the case of the fasting Palestinian prisoners," Rabbo said.
"The Israeli government should positively respond to the fair demands of the Palestinian prisoners. We hold the Israeli government fully responsible for the lives and fate of the fasting Palestinian prisoners," he stressed.
Hindrances
The PLO believes that the letter of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not provide clear answers to the central hindrances which prevent the restart of the peace process in the region.
"Netanyahu's letter did answer the key issues which stand in the path of the relaunch of the peace negotiations," he said.
"The letter did not address the Israeli colonial activities in the Palestinian Territories, mainly occupied East Jerusalem, nor did it recognise the 1967 border as the basis for the peace process," he said.
The PLO has condemned Israel's latest colonial decisions by which they seized private and public lands in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
