BETHLEHEM, 3 September 2004 — A hunger strike among political prisoners in Beersheva Jail, that saw at least one 55-year-old mother of an inmate of Beersheva prison striking in sympathy die, has finally ended after 19 days.
The death, just three days before the end of the protest of Aisheh Al-Zaban, mother of one of the inmates, occurred in the sit-in strike tent in Nablus.
At its peak, more than 4,000 Palestinians took part in the protest against the harsh standards of treatment against Palestinian political prisoners by their Israeli guards.
Since the Palestinian intifada started in September 2000, the number of political prisoners in Israeli jails has soared to over 7,500, according to Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser.
According to Nasser, reports by several human rights organizations indicate “prisoners are exposed to humiliating practices by the Israeli authorities.” These, he said, include “torture, indiscriminate beating, firing of tear gas, frequent invasive strip-searching, solitary confinement, delaying or withholding medical treatment.”
The prisoners have also demanded in their statement, called “the uprising of the empty stomach,” that the food be of reasonable quality and quantity.
The prisoners also demanded that legal documents pertaining to their cases and the prison policies they were expected to abide by be made available to them in Arabic.
Palestinian Authority leaders also called on the public to avoid eating for a day, in a gesture of solidarity toward the prisoners. The prisoners had demanded their Israeli jailers cut down on strip searches, improve sanitation, install telephones and allow more family visits in the jails.
At one stage, roughly half of all Palestinians in Israeli jails were participating in the protest. The numbers fell as successive groups of prisoners began taking food again.
Israeli prison spokesman Ian Domnitz said the prisoners had established the futility of their actions. “They simply realized they will not obtain anything with this hunger strike,” he said.
A spokesman for the prisoners said the protest was suspended after Israeli authorities agreed to some concessions. Israel has denied giving in to the prisoners’ demands, whose actions led to rallies, sit-ins and hunger strikes in their support in Palestinian towns.
Earlier during the protest, the official Israeli statement from Internal Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi given to reporters was that the prisoners “can starve themselves to death, we will give nothing and this strike will pass away as another unremembered incident.”
Nasser emphasized that the prisoners’ protest was nonpolitical. “It aims at ensuring that the conditions under which they are imprisoned are consistent with international norms of human rights and basic decency,” he said in a statement from his office in Bethlehem on Wednesday.
Israel argued that the purpose of the protest was to ease conditions for prisoners to maintain contact with militant groups in the West Bank and Gaza.
The climb-down by Israel comes at a time when prison conditions and the treatment of Arab prisoners are very much under the public spotlight in the investigation into the alleged activities of US military personnel in Abu Ghraib prison.
The Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs was to hold a news conference later amid speculation an end to the strike could be announced.
Hisham Abdelrazaq said all the inmates, with the exception West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, had stopped fasting, while a spokesman for the prison service said all detainees were now taking their meals.
Abdelrazaq confirmed that “all the prisoners had put an end to their strike.” He told reporters in Gaza City the hunger strikers had agreed to resume eating meals after the prison authorities had agreed to satisfy some of their demands. “The struggle will resume if the prisoners’ rights are not fulfilled,” he added.
Issa Qaraqea, president of the Bethlehem-based Palestinian prisoners’ club, told reporters the decision to halt the protest had been taken after the prison authorities had bowed to some of their demands but warned that the protest would resume on Sunday if the agreement were not honored.
Abdelrazaq said Barghouti, the most famous Palestinian prisoner, would continue a lone hunger strike.
His lawyers have said Barghouti has lost 11 kilograms and is suffering from severe dehydration after not eating for the past 19 days.
