250 Palestinian detainees begin mass hunger strike

Some 250 Palestinians being held in Israel’s Negev prison have begun an open-ended hunger strike in protest to their administrative detention.

The hunger strike will go on “until Israel’s policy of administrative detention comes to an end,” a prisoner representative was quoted as saying by the Ma’an News Agency on Tuesday.

There are reportedly around 1,500 Palestinian prisoners being held in the prison, 250 of whom are being held in administrative detention. The Tel Aviv regime incarcerates Palestinians without trial or charge for up to six months but the detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time.

The representative added that Israel uses administrative detention “to coerce the Palestinians and deprive them of their life.”

“We are not asking to be released or to have our sentences reduced, but rather we are asking to completely stop administrative detentions.”

The mass strike comes in solidarity with Palestinian prisoner Mohammed Allan who has been on hunger strike in protest to his prolonged detention without charge or trial since November 2014.