Israel Prison Service is increasing security at all jails Wednesday ahead of a hunger strike that Palestinian prisoners are planning to begin Sunday, Israeli media sources reported.
According to the same source, the prison authorities will transfer around 120 prisoners from Nafha prison to a prison in the Negev desert and replace them with criminal prisoners, apparently an attempt to thwart the planned hunger strike.
There are about 3,800 security prisoners held around the country.
The reasons behind the hunger strike are inhumane conditions, inadequate food; quality and quantity wise, unhygienic conditions due to a refusal to give detainees the proper cleaning supplies, bugs and insects all contribute to making the situation in the detention camps unfit for human use, reports the Palestinian Prisoners Society.
In addition, prisoners also demanded the removal of the barrier during the family visits.
Israeli security officials see Nafha prison as a stronghold for the Palestinian prisoners. It is likely that the prison authorities will want to weaken this stronghold.
‘Nafha is essentially the ‘last stronghold” of security prisoners, said Prison Service official Eli Gabizon. ‘And we decided that, unlike in the past, we will dismantle this last stronghold as well and banish it from the world.’
Gabizon said some of the prisoners planning the hunger strike may be placed in isolation, and that family visits to security prisoners will be banned starting Sunday.
Detainees in all military detention camps are currently preparing to announce an indefinite hunger strike in protest of the deteriorating situation in the detention centers where wounded or ill detainees have been denied adequate medical treatment.
According to statistics of the Palestinian Prisoners Society there are 800 detainees who are in immediate need of medical attention, including some cases where surgery is needed.
The Society said that there has been a critical deterioration in detention camps in the last three years as prison administrators refuse to listen to the demands of the detainees.
