“The prisoners will enjoy breathing in the smoke and suffer from the smell of the meat.” Thousands of first-degree relatives are being denied prisoner visits on security grounds, including parents of prisoners in their seventies and eighties.
Jerusalem: The conflict between Israel and Palestine started due to inter communal violence in Palestine from 1920 but the war erupted into full-scale hostilities in 1947-48.
1,500 Palestinian kids observing hunger strike in Israeli jail, intend protest against illegal oppression, poor conditions of their country and Israel’s child detention policy.
National Union activists held a barbeque to taunt Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike Thursday.
The youth branch and secretary-general of the far-right party, which has two representatives in Bayit Yehudi, Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel and MK Bezalel Smotrich, held up BBQ outside the Prison to “celebrate the hunger strike” and “break the spirit” of the strikers, in hopes that the smell of the meat would waft into the prison.
“The prisoners will enjoy breathing in the smoke and suffer from the smell of the meat, and [we will] show them that we will not give in to their whims,” the group said.
The group also called on the government not to surrender to the innocent captives [Hadar] Goldin and [Oron] Shaul, who are presumed dead and whose bodies are being held by Hamas in Gaza.
“The time has come to stop listening to the hunger strikers and show them that we won’t surrender to their whims… I call on the government and its leader to worsen the terrorists’ conditions and act with full force to release the soldiers [Hadar] Goldin and [Oron] Shaul, of blessed memory, who fought for all of us,” said Ofir Sofer, National Union Secretary-General.
“Surrender to a hunger strike? Anyway, it’s not clear why there’s no death penalty for terrorists. We wish these terrorists luck in their hunger strike. They should take it all the way,” said National Union Youth Chairman Avihai Greenwald.
Israeli Arabs:
Meanwhile Arab Israelis held protests against these acts.
“The vast majority of Arabs in Israel see themselves as part of the larger Palestinian people,” said Sami Abu Shehadeh, a central committee member of the Arab nationalist Balad party.
“Part of the prisoners is from the Arab Palestinian community in Israel and the rest are part of our people, our leadership, so we see it as a very important and just struggle.”
The prisoners are seeking an end to administrative detentions without trial.
“Due to a restrictive policy adopted at the height of the second intifada, thousands of first-degree relatives are being denied prisoner visits on security grounds, including parents of prisoners in their seventies and eighties,” said Kadoura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club.
“The prisoners want visitation rights expanded. There are health concerns, with prisoners waiting for years for operations and diagnoses being a protracted matter,” he says. Prisoners are also demanding the installation of public phones, which Fares says could still be monitored and tapped by prison authorities.
Another demand is to reinstate study programs for matriculation exams and correspondence courses.