17/04/2010 At a time the international community seems to be "concerned" for one Israeli occupation soldier captured by Palestinian resistance factions, none of the Western governments bothers itself to talk about the thousands of Palestinians detained in the Israeli occupation jails.
A total of more than 760,000 Palestinians, including many minors and women, have been detained since Israel seized the West Bank along with other Arab territories in the 1967 Middle East war; however the World seems to be in a coma when the issue is related to the Palestinians.
On Saturday, Palestinians held rallies and vigils in an annual day of support for the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli occupation prisons, a day after a detainee died in custody.
In the occupied West Bank town of Ramallah, people marched through the town centre, carrying pictures of imprisoned relatives or of Marwan Barghouti, a jailed leader of the mainstream Fatah party.
Barghouti, architect of the 2000 uprising (Intifada) against Israeli occupation, is serving five life terms but remains popular and is often spoken of as a successor to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. "We shall not rest until the prisoners issue is resolved," prisoners' affairs minister Issa Qaraqae told the crowd in Ramallah.
In occupied Jerusalem, relatives held pictures of their jailed loved ones at the entrance to the walled Old City, while in Gaza, foreign activists joined locals in a sit-in outside local offices of the Red Cross.
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyyeh called on Palestinians to fight Israeli occupation "by any means" to put pressure on Israel to free the detainees.
Saber Abu Karsh, head of the Wa'ed Prisoners Society, said "all Palestinian factions are united in solidarity with the detainees and, in support of their cause, join their hunger strike inside the Israeli jails."
Nash'et Al-Wheidi, member of the Popular Movement to Support Prisoners, said "this tent was erected to support the prisoners in Israeli jails and to demand an end to the division that has harmed the prisoners' cause."
Last week, Qaraqe said the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) has applied punitive measures to 36 Palestinian female prisoners in the Ad-Damun prison in response to the general hunger strike that began on April 7.
Qaraqe said the IPS has reduced the detainees' recess to one hour per day, prohibited them from sending letters to their family, and further enforced restricted access to the cantina, where detainees can buy stationary and other goods, because of their participation.
Moreover, the minister said the prison administration transferred a number of detainees from the Nafha prison to Ber Sheva prison in response to the hunger strike.
Detainees said they would escalate their protest if the IPS did not respond to their protests against humiliating treatment of relatives visiting detainees and banning Gaza detainees from family visitation rights for over four years.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority called on Israel to investigate the death of a Palestinian detainee in a jail in the southern occupied territories.
Qaraqi said 26 year-old Raed Abu Hammad died on Friday in solitary confinement.
An Israeli Prison Service spokesman said Hammad was found dead on the floor of his cell. Hammad was suffering from medical conditions and the Prison Service was checking the cause of his death, the spokesman said.
"We are demanding an investigation and to perform an autopsy to find out why he died," Qaraqi said. "Israel is fully responsible for the death of the prisoner because he was sick and Israel and the doctors in the prison authority knew that."
Former detainee Abed An-Naser Farawneh said Hamad’s death came as a result of "intentional medical negligence," and noted that Hammad was the 198th Palestinian to die in Israeli custody since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.
Hammad was a member of the Hamas party, and was serving a prison term following his conviction in an Israeli military court on charges of attempting an attack on Israeli civilians.
More than 7,000 Palestinians, including 270 under the age of 18, are currently being held in Israeli prisons, according to data released by the Palestinian central bureau of statistics.
Three of the prisoners have been in jail for more than 30 years, and 315 for more than 15 years, the office said in a statement released on the eve of the Prisoners' Day.
Of those held, 264 are under administrative detention, meaning they are being detained without trial.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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