Egyptian mediation determines the fate of the strike of Palestinian prisoners

Mervat Sadiq-Ramallah

On the first day of the Palestinian prisoners 'hunger strike, the president of the Palestinian Prisoner Club Qadoura Fares revealed Egyptian political mediation to discuss the prisoners' demands that could lead to the success of the strike in a short period.

Fares told Al-Jazeera Net that the issue of the prisoners imposed itself on the ongoing truce negotiations between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Israel through the Egyptian mediator at least a week ago.

Fares added that the truce negotiations through the Egyptian mediator were not over, and that the issue of the prisoners was at its core. Israel would not be able to conclude an agreement on Gaza that might ignore the prisoners' strike.

According to Fares, this is the first battle of the captive movement, the duration of the strike and its size within the prisons will not be the only influential workers, but other political interventions from abroad.

Negotiations of the truce
As for the strike coinciding with the Israeli elections, Fares said that Israel sought to use the sanctions on the prisoners in the internal political game and in the party's propaganda, but the negotiations of the truce came to contribute to enhancing the chances of success of the prisoner movement.

Fares believed that the Israeli Prime Minister is seeking to conclude a truce agreement in Gaza and with Palestinian parties away from the PLO through the truce negotiations through the Egyptian mediator, and the prisoners' strike will be among them.

Five of the leaders of the Palestinian factions in Israeli jails began on Monday evening in an open hunger strike after declaring negotiations failed to meet their demands with the Prison Service.

Dozens of prisoners - including leaders of Hamas and the Popular Front - have joined the strike on Tuesday.

A Popular Front (PFLP) statement announced that a "new battalion" of its leaders had joined the Nafha prison, headed by Ahed Abu Gholmi and Hamdi Qar'an.

According to the prisoners' plan, the strike will escalate with the participation of groups from all prisons in the second stage Thursday to the day of the Palestinian prisoner on 17 April.

The prisoners demand the removal of jamming devices installed by the occupation in recent months in the prisons of Ofer, the Negev and Rimon to disrupt any cellular communication between the prisoners and their families. Prisoners complain of the possibility that these devices cause cancerous diseases.

Alkarama strike
The prisoners 'club published the demands of the strike, which was called the "dignity strike." These included removing the jamming devices on cell phones in the prisoners' sections, installing public telephones to communicate with their families, canceling the visit to hundreds of prisoners, And the sentences imposed on them after the crackdown in the Negev and Ofer prisons in February and March.

The prisoners demanded that the prisoners be transferred to an alternative section of the Damoun Prison, to improve the conditions of detention of the child prisoners, to stop the policy of medical negligence, and to provide the necessary treatment to the sick and prisoners.

Many of the families of the prisoners received letters from their children by joining the strike, saying they had handed their leaders in prison written precepts before the strike began.

Wafa Abu Gholmi, the wife of the captive leader of the Popular Front, Ahed Abu Gholami, confirmed his joining the strike after participating in the negotiations with the Prison Service during the past week.

She said that the most important struggle for prisoners to lift the sanctions imposed on them since 2014 in the wake of the known process of Hebron, which led to the kidnapping and killing of three settlers, and the removal of jamming devices, and allow for university education, regular visits and treatment.

She said that more than 30 kinds of food have been banned from the prisoners in the last four years, and they demand their return.

Abu Ghalmi, 51, has been in jail for 16 years for involvement in the murder of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in ​​2002 and facing a life sentence.

Calls to move
Prisoner Majdi Qubaisi, from Ramallah, told his family that he joined the strike. His mother, Rashida Qubaisi, said that he was one of the Hamas prisoners who were oppressed in section 4 of the Negev prison two weeks ago. His family knows nothing but his joining the hunger strike. . Qubaisi spent 16 years in Israeli jails from his 19-year rule.

During a sit-in at the Red Cross headquarters in Al-Bireh in the center of the West Bank, his mother called for popular action to support the prisoners' strike in order to remove the jammers that showed their fear of causing them diseases.

The Palestinian prisoners and human rights organizations called for a series of sit-ins and popular rallies in support of the prisoners' strike in West Bank cities this week.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) expressed its concern about the use of repressive and punitive measures by the Prison Service against the strikers, the most serious of which is the threat of applying the Israeli force-feeding law in violation of international law.