Palestinians Stage Hunger Strike

An estimated 1,500 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons launched a hunger strike Sunday, demanding more visits with family members, an end to strip searches and better overall conditions.

The demonstration began in three prisons, and advocates expected it to grow to include hundreds more Palestinians held in other facilities on security-related charges.

Supporters say the strike seeks to halt frequent searches of cells and inmates and to ease restrictions on family visits, including measures such as removing glass partitions between prisoners and visitors.

“The goal of the strike is to improve prison conditions, and any claim that it is a political or security strike is unfounded,” said Issa Qaraqe, president of the Prisoners’ Club in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Israeli officials signaled a hard-nosed stance toward the strikers, saying the prisons served as hubs for planning and directing suicide bombings and other deadly attacks against Israelis.

“I will view the cessation and cancellation of the hunger strike as a success, but not at the price of demands to continue hostile terrorist action or to control the prisons,” Yaakov Ganot, commissioner of the Israel Prison Service, said in a statement.

Last week, Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, who oversees prisons, said the government had no room to improve conditions for inmates.

“As far as I’m concerned, the security prisoners can go on strike for a day, or a month, or even starve to death,” Hanegbi told reporters.

But a prison official said Sunday that authorities would forcibly feed prisoners to keep them from starving to death.

About 3,800 Palestinians are held in 20 Israeli civilian prisons, Israeli officials say. The hunger strike is centered in those facilities.

Israeli peace activists say an equal number of Palestinians are jailed in military facilities, including about 1,000 held under so-called administrative detention, which allows detention without trial or public accusation. Hunger strike supporters say they hope the action extends to the military jails.

Although Israeli officials regard the prisoners as criminals, Palestinians tend to view them as heroic, and some former inmates have gone on to take key leadership roles.

The prisoners issued 57 demands, including better medical care, telephone privileges and an end to what they describe as arbitrary fines. Advocates say the number of prisoners has grown and conditions have worsened during the intifada, now nearly 4 years old.

“The government should negotiate with them, should approach the 57 demands with an open mind and see what they can grant,” said Adam Keller, spokesman for the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom. “That’s the opposite of what the government is doing now.”

Ganot, the prisons commissioner, said authorities over the years had given Palestinian prisoners privileges that were not required by law, including access to television, radios, newspapers, university courses and electronic games.

But authorities said Sunday that they had begun taking away some of those privileges to discourage prisoners from continuing the strike. Strikers will be denied items from prison canteens, such as cigarettes and sweets, Ganot said, and family visits will be suspended.

He said the prisons’ medical personnel had been placed on alert and nearby hospitals notified of the hunger action.

In other developments, a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem was shot dead after stabbing and wounding an Israeli border policeman. The attacker, who was believed to be mentally ill, had been imprisoned for five years in connection with two stabbing attacks in the mid-1990s, according to Israeli news reports.

Early today, two Palestinians died when an Israeli military helicopter fired missiles near Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said. It was not known whether the men were fighters or civilians.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the helicopter fired at people setting up a rocket launcher and that at least one person was hit. The spot has been used for launching homemade rockets at Israeli towns outside Gaza, she said.

Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah contributed to this report.