Prisoner strike 'a warning to Israel'

Dubai: Thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails went on a one-day hunger strike yesterday in protest against Israeli treatment.

This comes a day after violent clashes erupted between inmates and Israeli prison guards at Ketziot prison in which a Palestinian detainee died.

Eisa Qaraqi, head of the Palestinian Prisoner's Club which is the main group representing Palestinians held in Israel, told Gulf News that the strike was meant as a "warning" to Israel but if security conditions continued to worsen for the prisoners, they will engage in an "open strike".

At the moment, the atmosphere in the prison is "calm but there is a sense of tension," he said in a telephone interview from the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Clashes began when an Israeli special unit "stormed prison cells shortly after midnight and sought to search the prisoner's personal belongings," says Qaraqi, who is also a parliamentary member from the Fatah movement.

Israeli guards "fired real bullets and rubber bullets at the prisoners which resulted in a confrontation between the two sides". As a result, more than 250 prisoners were injured.

One of the prisoners, 26-year-old Mohammad Al Askar died from the injuries he sustained from the clashes. "He died because of a hemorrhage he sustained due to Israeli beating," says Qaraqi.

Al Askar had just two months left to serve out a five-year prison sentence.

For years, Palestinians have tried to highlight the injustices committed against Palestinians in Israeli jails. Qaraqi reveals that 90 per cent of prisoners are currently not allowed visits from family members because of Israel's on-going "security concerns". This reason, he says, has become Israel's "automatic response".

High-level frustration

According to Qaraqi, Hunger strikes are a way for prisoners to "show the world that Israel is using violence and forms of terrorism against Palestinian prisoners". He says Israel's practices go against human rights. Qaraqi cautions, "this is definitely not the first time Israel has violated human rights; three months ago, Israeli guards committed a similar violation at Nafha prison".

Many Palestinians at Ketziot have been imprisoned without trial. Most of the time, lawyers of the accused do not even know and are unable to find out what the accusations against their clients are. Some analysts contend that the majority of the 11,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails are political prisoners.

Dr Gada Karmi, a Palestinian academic at the University of Exeter in England, says the most important thing for Palestinian prisoners is to have "an end to their sentence".

But in Israeli jails, where Israelis decide what constitutes a crime, the sentences are "excessively long and the conditions usually inhumane".

Dr Karmi points out that there is a high level of frustration amongst Palestinian who are imprisoned by a group of people "whose sense of justice is different from theirs" and this brings about a feeling of hopelessness. She says this helps "explain why prisoners hold hunger strikes".

Meanwhile, agency reported that an Israeli missile strike on a vehicle killed a top Palestinian fighter. Mubarak Al Hassanat, 37, was driving his black jeep on Gaza's coastal road when his vehicle was struck by missiles.