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| Palestinian prisoners end hunger strike |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 09/03/2004 |
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Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails on Thursday have effectively ended an 18-day-old hunger strike after most of their demands for better conditions were met, a Palestinian cabinet minister said. "We announce to you all that all prisoners in all prisons have ended today their open hunger strike," said Hisham Abdel-Razek, the Palestinian Minister of Prisoner Affairs. "Most of the demands" for improved conditions in prison were met, Abdel-Razek added. He said that, one prominent prisoner, Marwan al-Barghouthi, 45, sentenced to consecutive life sentences for the killings of five Israelis, and seen as a possible successor to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, was continuing with the strike. But as the decision was read out at a solidarity rally in Gaza City, hundreds of activists of Arafat's Fatah movement fired rifles into the air, shouting they had achieved victory. Several hours earlier the head of a support group in the West Bank city of Ramallah said the prisoners were suspending their liquids-only fast. The Israeli prison authorities denied the Palestinians had made any gains from the strike. "They didn't get anything. We didn't hold any discussions with them at all. They resumed eating unconditionally," the commander of prisons, Yaacov Ganot, said. At the height of the liquids-only fast that began on August 15, nearly 3,000 Palestinians in several prisons refused to eat to press demands to stop strip searches, allow more frequent family visits, improve sanitation and install public telephones. Israeli officials had dismissed the strike as a ploy by prisoners to secure easier communication with militant groups waging a nearly four-year-old revolt in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. |
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