A hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners has entered its sixth day after the failure of talks with the Israel Prison Services (IPS) over their deteriorating conditions in Israeli jails earlier this week.
The prison administration tried to exert pressure on detainees by saying that it won’t negotiate with those on strike, but it failed in its attempts, said sources close to the Palestinian Authority Prisoners Affairs Commission.
It also summoned the prisoners’ representatives to negotiate with them, but it didn’t meet many of their demands.
Dozens of Palestinian prisoners started an open-ended hunger strike on Monday, demanding better conditions.
Since the beginning of 2019, tension has prevailed in all Israeli prisons due to the measures taken by the IPS against Palestinian detainees.
Tension has increased in recent days after Israeli special forces stormed a number of detention centers, assaulted prisoners by beating them and firing tear gas, which caused dozens of casualties.
Since the beginning of the strike, two rounds of talks have taken place, the last of which was on Thursday.
PA Prisoners Affairs Commission spokesman Hassan Abd Rabbo said Friday that the strike in Israeli prisons has entered a new stage, following the failure of negotiations with the prisons’ administration.
The administration paralyzed the negotiations when it refused to meet any of the prisoners’ demands, he added, fearing an escalation in the dispute between both sides.
Abd Rabbo explained that the administration tried to persuade prisoners to suspend their hunger strike, in exchange for allowing each inmate to make a phone call two or three times a week.
Yet, it refused to lift sanctions on prisoners, allow for visits by families of Hamas inmates coming from Gaza Strip and dismantle jamming devices.
Palestinian prisoners had demanded that the IPS remove all e-jamming devices recently put in several prisons.
They also demanded that Israel gives visitation rights to families of Gazan prisoners, installing public phones in jails, improving medical services, ending solitary confinement and raids on cells.
