A statement issued on behalf of the prisoners in Israeli jails warned against the implementation of a plan by Israeli Minister of Internal Security, Gilad Erdan, to reduce the water allocated to the prisoners and other measures of torture.
The statement described the plan a declaration of war and threatened that it would be met with a massive uprising inside the prisons.
It added that the “Zionist government” was using this plan as part of electoral propaganda and as a tool in “the permanent war against us as Palestinian people.”
“We, as prisoners, in response to Erdan’s declaration, will stand united to face this attack, armed with a sense of true national unity. We call upon our people everywhere and the forces of national and Islamic action to back our movement and support us on the ground,” the statement read.
Five Palestinian factions, including Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, signed the statement.
Erdan announced on Wednesday several new procedures that could worsen the conditions of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
The tough measures include rationing water supply, blocking Palestinian Authority funds, banning prisoners from cooking food for themselves, reducing autonomy given to Palestinian prisoners and ending separation of prisoners belonging to rival Palestinian factions Hamas, Fatah, and Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine.
But the Israeli minister’s comments were not met with seriousness in Israel. In a leaked statement, the Israel Prison Service said Erdan’s declaration was “unrealistic and mere electoral propaganda.” Sources within the Service said that “most of the things that Erdan is talking about are impossible to implement.”
