Prisoners of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Mejiddo prison rejected an offer by Israeli prison officials to end the isolation of Ahmad Sa’adat on the condition that they end their hunger strike on Saturday, April 28, reported Fuad al-Khafsh of Ahrar Centre for Prisoners.
Israeli prison officials approached PFLP hunger strikers in Mejiddo, offering to end the isolation of Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the PFLP, who has been held in isolation cells for over three years. Sa’adat’s isolation was one of the main triggers of the September-October 2011 hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners that inspired the ongoing wave of hunger strikes. This open-ended hunger strike, which launched on April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, began with 1600 hunger strikers and has grown by hundreds daily, with a thousand more expected to join in the coming week. It includes prisoners from all Palestinian political parties and factions, and demands an end to isolation, end to administrative detention, and access to family visits, education and media.
In response to this offer, the PFLP prisoners refused to end the strike, saying that “the issue of isolated prisoners is a single case and cannot be divided. It is not for the end of isolation of Sa’adat only but for all prisoners.” Khafsh said to Safa agency that Israeli occupation officials have presented similar offers to prisoners fom different factions in an attempt to foment disunity among the prisoners, and has failed in such attempts.
