Thousands of Palestinian Prisoners Are On Hunger Strike

FEATURING HUWAIDA ARRAF – Israel has said it will not negotiate with more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners who are on hunger strike to protest their conditions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the press, “These are terrorists and incarcerated murderers who are getting exactly what the international law requires. My policy is that you can’t negotiate with prisoners such as these… There is no reason to give them additional conditions in addition to what they already receive.”

The hunger strike is led by famed Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouti. Barghouti wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times on Monday saying, “Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation aims to break the spirit of prisoners and the nation to which they belong, by inflicting suffering on their bodies, separating them from their families and communities, using humiliating measures to compel subjugation. In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it.”

Huwaida Arraf, Palestinian American human rights activist, lawyer and co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement. She is also the former Chair of the Free Gaza Movement and currently the Palestine and Refugees correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali.