Shop owners took part in the one-day strike on Sunday in support of the Palestinian inmates who have been refusing food to express their opposition to the Israeli “administrative detention,” which is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows the Israeli regime to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months.
The so-called administrative detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time.
“The Higher Committee of Prisoners Affairs as well as national and Islamic forces have called for this strike throughout West Bank in solidarity with our hunger-striking prisoners,” said a Palestinian shop owner.
According to Palestinian sources, there are nearly 200 administrative prisoners, including nine members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in Israeli jails.
From among the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, some 125 have been refusing food since April 24.
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to pass a law to force-feed the Palestinian hunger strikers. This is while force-feeding is considered a grave breach of World Medical Association’s guideline on a treatment for hunger strikers.
Dozens of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli prisons have been taken to hospitals as their health conditions have seriously deteriorated.
Nearly 20 human rights groups and the Palestinian Ministry for Prisoners’ Affairs recently wrote a letter to European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to bring her attention to the situation of the hunger-striking Palestinians.
On June 6, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon voiced concerns over the deteriorating health of Palestinian administrative detainees. He reiterated “his long-standing position that administrative detainees should be charged or released without delay.”
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jail who found no way but to go on a long hunger strike for having their voices heard, are being treated with brutality, said the inmates’ lawyers recently.
In 2012, over 1,500 Palestinian inmates staged a four-week hunger strike that ended after Tel Aviv agreed not to extend the jail terms of those in administrative detention.
NTJ/MB