Hamas vows to support detainees hunger strike

Hamas has announced the launch of a series of events to publicize the cause of thousands of distressed Palestinian captives in the Zionist Israeli jails during the declaration of a desperate open-ended hunger strike.

This comes as the strike has already begun to take its toll on one of the longest held Palestinian prisoners in the Zionist Israeli jails.

With regard to the functions that will run from Monday until Saturday, Hamas said that the events come as a duty indebted to the heroes taken captive in the occupation prisons and in solidarity with those prisoners “as they enter the battle of ‘empty bowels’ in refusal of the aggressive Zionist policies used against them”.

Hamas called on media outlets to cover the events, which include mass rallies and sit-ins across Gaza.

Meanwhile, calls have been for news outlets to adopt an inclusive and permanent plan to expose the violations that take place in the Israeli prisons and support the prisoners during the strike.

Abdullah Qandil, spokesman of the Waed prisoner rights group in Gaza, said he received letters from prisoners expounding upon past experiences with hunger strikes. He said the Zionist Israeli prison guards used to taunt them by saying that people in the outside world did not know what was going on inside the prisons, so there is no point of their action.

According to a fresh report by the Gaza Prisoners’ Affairs Ministry, the entire population of 1,500 prisoners in the Negev prison went on hunger strike on Monday in support of other prisoners who have been fasting for the past six days.

The ministry’s media director Riyadh al-Ashqar expected that the incident would increase the momentum of protests and send a clear message to the prison administration that they cannot disperse the prisoners, as they have tried to do in an attempt to thwart the strike.

Ashqar explained that the prisoners are striking in two forms: one group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has declared an open-ended hunger strike to protest the isolation of PFLP secretary-general Ahmed Saadat, and the second group is partially striking in increments, as is the case of the majority of prisoner in most prisons.

A delegation of ex-captives in the Zionist Israeli prisons and Palestinian prisoner rights groups have met Monday with a representative of the International Red Cross in Syrian capital Damascus to show solidarity with the prison strike.

The delegation submitted a statement detailing abuses by the prison administrations, including the use of solitary confinement and administrative detention and medical neglect as well as restrictions on visitation, education, and books.

Reports have revealed that the third longest held Palestinian prisoner in Zionist Israeli prisons, Akram Mansur, 52, is suffering a severe medical crisis after joining the hunger strike.

Mansur, who suffers from a brain tumor, has lost consciousness on several occasion to the point that he could not recognize anyone around him, prisoner sources said. Yet the prison occupation authorities have refused to provide medical treatment.

The prisoner has been fasting since Saturday along with twenty other prisoners in Ashkelon prison.