Deal ends hunger strike by Palestinian inmates

PALESTINIAN PRISONERS have ended the longest hunger strike by detainees in Israeli custody, after winning a number of concessions.

Under the terms of the Egyptian-brokered deal agreed by both sides yesterday, Israel said it would renew family visits for prisoners from the Gaza Strip and end solitary confinement for 19 inmates.

The visits from Gaza were halted in 2006 after militants in Gaza captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. He was released in a prisoner swap with Hamas last October, but the ban on visits from Gaza relatives had remained.

Israel refused a key demand of the hunger strikers to release any inmate who has completed a six- month period of administrative detention without trial.

However, Hamas official Saleh Arouri, a member of the team which negotiated with Egyptian mediators, said Israel agreed to provide a list of accusations to administrative detainees, or release them at the end of their term.

Israel said as part of the deal the prisoners agreed to stop “terror activity” from inside the jails.

The hunger strike began on April 17th when 1,600 inmates, about one-third of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails, refused food as part of the campaign for better conditions and to end administrative detention.

The protest was inspired by two Islamic Jihad members held in administrative detention, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahl, who began a hunger strike at the end of February and were yesterday on the 77th day of their protest. Last week, the Israeli supreme court rejected their request to be freed from administrative detention but suggested the security establishment consider releasing them on medical grounds.

The court said administrative detention “causes unease to every judge” but was a necessary evil because Israel was “constantly fighting terror”.

Security prisoners are held in high esteem in Palestinian society and most extended families have at least one relative serving time in an Israeli prison for militant activity. A particular bone of contention remains Israel’s policy of administrative detention under which militants are interned without trial and often without being told of the offences they have allegedly committed.

Legal rights groups have criticised the use of administrative detention, which Israel inherited from the British mandate in Palestine. According to Israel, the measure is used only in extreme cases, such as “ticking bombs” or to protect the identity of Palestinian informants.

About 300 Palestinians are currently being held in administrative detention. Critics claim the procedure deprives the prisoners of the right to legal defence.

Palestinians had protested in the West Bank and Gaza in solidarity with the hunger strikers, and Palestinian officials had warned of ominous consequences if one of the inmates had died.

Israel, fearing a resurgence of violence, was keen to end the strike before Nakba (catastrophe) Day, marked today, the anniversary of the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948.