National committee: Israeli jailers try hard to intimidate hunger strikers

National committee: Israeli jailers try hard to intimidate hunger strikers

The higher national committee for the defense of prisoners on Sunday said that the Israeli prison administrations tried hard to intimidate Palestinian hunger strikers into stopping their protest steps but they failed, calling for continuing to hold popular activities in solidarity with the detainees.

The committee explained that the prison administrations threatened to deprive prisoners of family visits and withdraw more of their rights, and then took suppressive measures against a number of them through transferring them from one prison to another.

Riyadh Al-Ashqar, the information director of the committee, affirmed that all these means failed to dissuade the prisoners from their strike and prompted the Israeli jailers to flex their muscles and send messages to them about the possibility of using force if the strike continued.

Ashqar added that the special units of Nahshon and Matsad, notorious for their suppressive activities, stormed the prisons of Negev, Hadarim and Nafha and violently attacked the prisoners.

The official noted that the Israeli prison administrations have fears that the strike of Palestinian detainees may escalate in the coming days in conjunction with the popular rallying around the protest steps they declared to take if their demands were not fulfilled.

In a related incident, the Palestinian prisoners in Beersheba jail (Ohli Kedar) said that the prison administration at dawn Saturday stormed and ransacked their cells at the pretext of security precautions.

The Palestinian prisoner society quoted the prisoners as saying that the real reason behind this break-in was the open strike which they participated in, pointing out that the administration threatened them to bar them from buying things from the canteen inside the prison.