Health of leader, striking prisoner Marwan Barghouthi, deteriorated

he Media unit of the ‘Dignity and Freedom’ collective hunger strike on Monday Confirmed the health deterioration of PLO leader, MP, prisoner Marwan Barghouthi, who lead the strike along with 1,500 Palestinian prisoners on Prisoner’s Day on 17 April.

The committee from the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission said that Barghouthi’s health has significantly deteriorated, which called for immediate medical intervention.

However, Barghouthi refused it, calling for the prisoners’ demands to be heard. Demands are represented in ending the policy of administrative detention, solitary confinement and the prevention of lawyer and family visits.

The Israeli Prison Service continues to ban family and lawyers’ visits to the prisoners since the start of the strike, in an attempt to suppress the prisoners. The lawyers of the Palestinian institutions working on the detainees’ affairs boycott the occupation courts for the fourth day respectively.

Israel has also moved hundreds of prisoners to new cells and isolated leaders of the strike, and continues to incite against the Palestinian detainees through their media on the legislative and executive levels. A case in point is the request of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to the Palestinian Authority to prove its commitment to peace by stopping the allowances paid to the Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails.

On Sunday, 40 detainees from Megiddo prison and 20 detainees from Raymond prison joined the hunger strike.

On Sunday as well, the administration of the Prison Service impose punitive measures to confront the striking detainees, especially the leaders of the strike, including: moving the striking detainees and isolating them, confiscating their belongings, depriving them from watching TV, reducing the time of their break and depriving them from the canteen.