Palestinian prisoners held in Raymond prison declared a series of protest steps after MK Oren Hazan of the right-wing Likud party Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party intercepted and boarded a bus of Gazan prisoners’ families on Monday.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said that the protest steps include refusing food and closing the prison sections.
Earlier on Monday member of the Knesset Oren Hazan broke into a Red Cross bus and assaulted relatives of Gazan prisoners aboard it.
As he confronted the Palestinian families he turned to the mother of an imprisoned Palestinian and asked “Who did you come to visit? What did your son do?” to which she replied “He did not do anything.”
Hazan responded to the mother by saying “Your son is a dog. He’s a dog. You come to visit the scum who are sitting here in prison whom you see as your family members.”
As the woman attempted to respond to Hazan’s abuse he shouted over her saying “I will make sure you cannot visit here anymore and we’ll do everything so you will not get in. You are not welcome here you have to understand well and you raised your son to murder.”
Hazan was with a group of other right-wing Israelis who are part of the so-called Task Force for the Release of Prisoners and Missing Persons.
The group has vowed to continue intercepting buses and attacking Palestinian families as long as Hamas continues holding Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which organizes the weekly trips for families of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza responded to the incident saying “the prisoners’ families are entitled to visit their children with dignity.”
