Pals in Israeli jails start hunger strike amid Jewish extremists’ plots

By: Ahmad Hammadi

RAMALLAH, West Bank: Thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails began on Sunday a hunger strike but Israel's security minister said he didn't care if they starved to death while a cache of weapons discovered hidden in caves in the West Bank has raised extra alarm bells among Israel's internal intelligence service because the terrorists are Jewish extremists.

The weapons were stolen from the army by members of the same movement that tried to blow up an Arab girls' school in Jerusalem two years ago using a trailer packed with explosives.

According to supporters the prisoners, seen by Palestinians as symbols of resistance to Israeli occupation, want wardens to stop strip searches, allow more frequent visits from their families, improve sanitary conditions and install public telephones.

More than 7,500 Palestinians, including 4,000 jailed over violence against Israelis, are imprisoned in Israel.

“We declare, in the name of God, our national decision to launch an open hunger strike,” the Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a statement, accusing Israel of “robbing us of all our rights, treading on our dignity and treating us like animals.”

Meanwhile, a protest rally attended by Palestinian boys with their hands symbolically chained together was staged on Sunday in the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip in support of prisoners inside Israeli jails.

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