On Saturday, Palestinian prisoners announced the start of protest steps against the Israeli prison administration, after it retracted previous understandings with them, and threatened a collective strike after activating the emergency committee.

This came in a statement carried by the Palestinian Prisoners Club on the authority of the Supreme National Emergency Committee, which represents the prisoners of all Palestinian factions in the prisons of the Israeli occupation.

"After consultation, we decided to engage in our movement, starting from the beginning of this week, through tactical steps that will end within a maximum period of two weeks with an open hunger strike in which all factions of the national action participate in the occupation prisons," the prisoners said in a statement bearing the number 1.

The statement clarified that the movement will start through the strike on the next Monday and Wednesday, while refraining from going out for the security check as an initial start and a last warning to the occupation prisons administration to stop this attack and retract its decisions.

He said that the Israeli Prisons Administration retracted previous understandings last March, after which they stopped their movement at the time, adding that the occupation is due to the abuse of prisoners in general, and prisoners of life in particular, through arbitrary transfers every 6 months.

He explained that the arbitrary transfer of the prisoner loses his stability and harmony with his surroundings, which was imposed on him after spending long years in captivity, as the majority of prisoners are close to their 20 years inside the prison.

The prisoners said that they had rearranged their ranks for a battle that might soon be imposed on them.

They called on all the Palestinian people and their living and resistance factions to stand by their side in this battle.

Khalil Awawda

In a related context, the Israeli occupation army announced that the Israeli Supreme Court had frozen the administrative detention of Palestinian prisoner Khalil Awawda, who has been on hunger strike for 161 days.

However, the head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, Qadura Fares, questioned the Israeli decision and said that the freezing does not mean the end of Awadeh's administrative detention, but rather it means releasing prisons and intelligence responsibility for his life.

He believed that the decision to freeze came "based on medical data and reports from the hospital indicating a danger to his life, but if his health condition improves and the detainee decides to leave the hospital, his administrative detention will be activated immediately."

The Islamic Jihad movement had stipulated the release of Khalil Awawda and its leader, Bassam al-Saadi, in the agreement that ended the recent Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip.

It is noteworthy that on the tenth of last March, the Palestinian prisoners suspended protest steps against the prison administration, after the latter retracted its measures against them.

The Palestinian prisoners are protesting the abusive measures taken by the prison administration against them, after 6 prisoners managed to escape from Gilboa prison in September 2021, before being re-arrested later.

In the same month, the prisoners formed the Supreme National Emergency Committee, emanating from all factions, to approve and manage their protest steps.

The number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons is about 4550, including 27 female prisoners, 175 minors, and 670 administrative detainees, meaning without trial or charge.