RAMALLAH (PIC)– The Palestinian captives in Israeli jails including women and children are set to go on a single day hunger strike en masse Wednesday to protest the IOA solitary confinement policy in those jails Palestinian sources affirmed.
In a press conference he held in Ramallah city on Tuesday Suleiman Abu Sunaina the prisoners and ex-prisoners’ affairs minister in the PA unity government called on the international legal and human right organizations to pressure the IOA into halting such abhorred policy.
He added that his ministry was and still is exerting all it could in order to bring the prisoners out of jail and fold their file once and for all.
But he acknowledged that he had no details on the proposed prisoners swap deal between the Israeli occupation government and captors of IOF serviceman Gilad Shalit.
For her part Palestinian MP Khaleda Jarrar of the PFLP who chairs the prisoners committee in the PA legislature criticized statements uttered by a number of PA ministers over the exchange deal adding “Premature statements over the issue are indeed tampering with the prisoners’ feelings”.
In this context the lady legislator called on captors of Shalit to break basis of the Israeli criteria on releasing Palestinian captives and urged them to give priority to oldest serving Palestinian prisoners.
Yet she deprecated the isolation policy which the IOA is practicing against Palestinian detainees asserting that such a policy contradicts international laws and conventions regarding prisoners. She also noted that the IOA is denying the captives their religious rights including free time for prayer.
“There are more than 20 Palestinian captives placed in complete solitary confinement in different Israeli jails” the PFLP deputy pointed out.
The IOA use the isolation policy as a mean to psychologically and physically torture the prisoners and to break their determination and morale.
