Report: Israel arrests 370 Palestinians in May 2011

Gaza-A report prepared by Gaza’s prisoner affairs ministry says 370 Palestinians were arrested during raids in the Palestinian territories in May 2011.

Those arrested include 40 minors, five women, two Palestinian Legislative Council members, and 20 foreign pro-Palestinian activists.

Al-Khalil city in southern West Bank was a main focus for arrests, with 75 of its locals nabbed.

Also last month, Palestinians held in six Israeli prisons declared an extensive hunger strike in a bid to curb the common policy of isolating prisoners by the Israeli Prison Service, reads the report by Riyadh al-Ashkar, the ministry’s media director.

In May, the isolation of Popular Front chief Ahmed Saadat was extended to six months after he had already spent the last two years in solitude.

The monthly report adds that the medical files of several ill prisoners in Ramle prison hospital were closed that month, and their treatment was stopped short by the IPS.

The IPS has also failed to honor court decisions regarding prisoners, as it has yet to apply a ruling by the Israeli supreme court allowing one imprisoned woman to call family in Jordan.