RAMALLAH, April 18, 2017 (WAFA) – The number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who started on Monday and open hunger strike has reached 1500, the strikers Media Committee of Freedom and Dignity said on Tuesday.

It said prisoners from all Palestinian political factions are participating in the strike spearheaded by Marwan Barghouti, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and Fatah Central Committee,  as well as Karim Younis and Maher Younis, the oldest and longest serving detainees held since 1983, and Diaa al-Agha, held since before the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords.

The media committee said the strikers aim at restoring many of their rights that were taken away by the occupation prisons administration, which they had achieved through many past strikes.

The prisoners’ most important demands include restoration of regular family visits, ending the policy of medical negligence, ending the policy of isolation, ending the policy of administrative detention, allowing books, newspapers and satellite channels in the prisons, in addition to other demands to improve their living conditions.

In order to crush the strike, the occupation prison authorities moved leaders of the strike to new locations, said the media committee, confiscated belongings of the striking prisoners including their clothes leaving them with only the clothes they have on, transforming the prisoners‘ rooms into isolation cells, establishing a field hospital in Naqab desert to deal with the strikers since they will not be taken to regular Israeli hospitals, and blocking local and Arab television channels.

M.K.