As the mass “Freedom and Dignity” hunger strike in Israeli prisons entered its 30th day on Tuesday, the leader of the strike Marwan Barghouthi stopped drinking water in response to Israel’s continued refusal to respond to the hunger strikers’ demands.
The Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs had announced earlier on Tuesday that Barghouthi would stop drinking water in face of the Zionist measures.
Participants in the strike, now involving some 1,300 Palestinian prisoners, have been refusing food and vitamins since the strike began on April 17, drinking only a mixture of salt and water as sustenance.
Hunger-striking prisoners are calling for an end to the denial of family visits, the right to pursue higher education, appropriate medical care and treatment, and an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention — imprisonment without charge or trial — among other demands for basic rights.
The committee’s statement quoted lawyer Khodor Shqeirat as saying that Barghouthi’s decision to escalate measures by refusing water would be “a new turning point in the ongoing open-ended hunger strike.”
Source: Al-Manar Website and Maan news agency
