Issa Qaraqi', the Palestinian Minister of Detainees and
Ex-Detainees, said that Lanan Abu Ghilmeh launched the strike in Al-Damon
prison, in the Haifa area, after its administration rejected her appeal to be
placed with her sister Taghreed, who is jailed in the Hasharon (Telmond), a
central Israeli prison located between Tel Aviv and Netanya.
Qaraqi' said that Lanan launched a nine-day strike on last
October and lift it after the prison administration promised to transfer her to
the Hasharon prison.
The minister said that the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) "refused
to place Lanan and Taghreed in the same cell, or allow them to shake hands,
when Lanan was transferred to the Hasharon prison last week due to the Haifa
fire."
The IPS evacuated all of the Al-Damon inmates, including the
Palestinians, after the wildfire started last Thursday.
The prisoners were returned back to the Al-Damon prison on
Wednesday. The minister quoted Lanan as saying that "it is of siblings'
right to be placed in the same prison. It is a human right and depriving them
from meeting is illogical and inhuman punishment."
Qaraqi' called on Palestinian political movements and
international human rights organizations to "pressure Israel to release
the two sisters."
Lanan is held in administrative detention since July 2010.
Lanan is a widow of Palestinian martyr and sister of Ahed Abu Ghilmeh who is
serving a life sentence and five years for his role in the assassination of Israeli
Minister of Tourism, Rehavam Zeevi, in October 2001 in a hotel in Jerusalem.
Activists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine killed Zeevi to avenge the assassination of the group's secretary
general Abu Ali Mustafa by Israeli forces.
According to the recent Palestinian statistics, there are
6,700 Palestinians currently held in 10 prisons and 3 detention camps in Israel
and in the West Bank. There are 300 prisoners under the age of 18. Israel also
holds 43 females and 11 Hamas members of the Palestine Legislative Council. The
Palestinian prisoners held dozens of hunger strikes since the Israeli
occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967. Abdulqader Abu Al-Fahem was the
first Palestinian prisoner to die after 15 days of hunger strike at the Asqlan
prison in 1970.
Prisoners Rasim Halaweh, Alial-Ja'fari and Ishaq Maragheh
died in the Nafhah prison in 1980 after 32 days of hunger strike. The prisoners
Anees Douleh and Hussein Obaidat died in 1992 after 15 days of hunger strike.
