The Palestinian Prisoners 'Club said today that seven Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have been on hunger strike for refusing their administrative detention. A report issued by the Prisoners' Affairs and Liberties Committee in cooperation with civil institutions said that the Israeli authorities arrested a total of 2759 Palestinians in the last half of this year.
The club explained in a press statement that the detainee Jamal al-Tawil joined on Sunday the open strike for food, bringing the number of strikers refused to administrative detention to seven.
Al-Taweel is one of the most prominent leaders of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the central West Bank town of Al-Bireh. He spent about 15 years in detention.
The prisoner's club pointed out that the most hunger strikers were Jafar Izz al-Din from the town of Arraba in Jenin in the north of the West Bank. The strike lasted 30 days. The rest of the strikers were Ahmed Zahran, Mohammed Abu Atar, Mustafa al-Hassanat, Hatifa Halabiya and Hassan al-Zaghari.
And the administrative detention of a decision to detain without trial for a period of one and a half years, and is based on confidential security information against the detainee, and is being extended several times.
In a related context, a report issued by the Committee for the Affairs of the Prisoners and Liberators (affiliated with the PLO) in cooperation with institutions active in the cases of prisoners that Israel arrested in the first six months of this year, 2759 Palestinians, including 446 children and 76 women.
The report added that the total number of prisoners in the prisons of the occupation rose to 5500, including 43 women and 220 children, while the number of detainees administratively about 500.