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Mahmud Hams/AFP/GettyImages
Relatives of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike flash the victory sign as they celebrate in Gaza City on May 14, 2012 after hearing that the prisoners have agreed a deal with Israel to end their fast in exchange for an easing of their conditions. Most of the 1,550 prisoners on hunger strike have been fasting for up to 28 days to demand an improvement in their conditions, but another seven prisoners have been refusing food for between 53 and 76 days.
RAMALLAH, West Bank -- A deal has been reached with Israel to end a weeks-long high-profile hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, an official said on Monday.
The prisoners signed the deal Monday afternoon at an Israeli prison in Ashkelon, the Palestinian Minister for Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqe said. He did not have details of the deal, and Israeli officials had no immediate comment.
At least 1,600 prisoners held by Israel have been on a hunger strike since mid-April, demanding better conditions. A handful of prisoners have been refusing food for as long as 77 days, and are said to be in critical condition.
The peaceful campaign had focused attention on so-called "administrative detention," a practice that has drawn international criticism, and raised fears of a violent Palestinian backlash if any of the protesters die.
AP Photo/Bernat Armangue
Harbiya al-Batall holds a picture of her 33-year-old son Hasan Safadi at their family home in the West Bank city of Nablus May 11, 2012. Hasan Safadi was arrested on June 29 and is held without charges since. Hasan has been on a hunger strike since March 3, 2012.
Fighting Israeli detention, Palestinians resort to hunger strike
Earlier, officials told Reuters that Israeli authorities had balked at the agreement's call for the release of any inmate whose detention term, usually a six-month period that can be renewed by a military court, has ended.
But they said Israel had agreed under the deal to renew family visits for prisoners from the Gaza Strip and end the solitary confinement of 19 inmates.
PhotoBlog: 1,200 Palestinian prisoners declare hunger strike
Relatives' visits from Gaza were suspended after Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Palestinian militants and taken to the Hamas-ruled territory in 2006. He was released in October in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
High esteem
Israel says the detentions are necessary because some cases cannot be brought to open court for fear of exposing Palestinian intelligence sources who have cooperated with Israel.
Palestinians jailed by Israel are held in high esteem by their fellow Palestinians, who see them as heroes in what they term a struggle against occupation.
The hunger strikers include militants from Islamist Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which reject peace with Israel, as well as members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group.
Two inmates who helped to launch the strike, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla of Islamic Jihad, were in the 77th day of their fast on Monday.
As Palestinian hunger strikers starve, a mother waits
Last week, Israel's Supreme Court turned down their request to be freed from detention without trial but said security authorities should consider releasing them for medical reasons.
The court said administrative detention "causes unease to every judge" but was a necessary evil because Israel was "constantly fighting terror."
A month ago, Israel released hunger striker Khader Adnan, an Islamic Jihad member, amid concerns he would die. He agreed to end his fast after 66 days in exchange for a promise not to renew his detention.
On Monday, thousands of people held a rally in Gaza in support of the hunger strikers, chanting "We will give our souls and blood to redeem the prisoners."
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Looks like this is another failed publicity stunt.
Perhaps these people will focus on existing peacefully with Israel, instead of continuing to attack Israel.
They won't have to, the World is able to see what Nazi Israel has become.
To MORON malocchio:
You are an IDIOT and why do you represent yourself with a bald eagle with the American Flag??? MORON, don't you remember 9/11?????? The Palestinians were celebrating in the streets when that happened, both in Jersey City, NJ and in the Palestinian territories! It was on the TV. You are either too stupid or too young to remember or maybe you are both young and stupid or old and stupid! Either way you are a MORON!
Israel, really!? They Israelis aren't running around the world trying to kill people in every nation, mainly the US.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks-2001-2003.htm
Mallachio and Wake Up:
Hopefully both of you are not taking advantage of living here in the United States.
Seems you would be better off living in a Communist Country or an Aryan Nation Group-=--Both of you, shameful; you do not know the present or the past re: Israel and Palestine or History..
Anti Semites; young children who follow their parents thoughts, and talk like "parrots".
Grow Up---It is obvious you both are neither educated, or Worldly.
Silly Israel - what arab or muslim country would try to strike a deal to get their prisoners to take in food? Arabs dont even respect other arabs as much.
But no, Israel has to be ethical and succumb to pressure - pressure from within itself as much as from outside, so that this scum doesnt have to starve itself to death and can continue its hate and attacks.
Israel needs to stop bowing to pressure - people that hate Israel will hate Israel no matter what - no matter what standards they are held to or how ethical they act - because its Israel.
people need to make a choice... civilization or radicalization, before it is too late.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6xdYDbxZnI
I think poor palestinians realized they are not dealing with human beings...
But, if I were palestinian prisoners, I will check to make sure food is not poisoned....
What a windfall for the local Falafel Hut.
Israel is too ethical. Israel should of let them starve to death. Look at how they treated Gilad Shalit? The scum of Palestinian murderers are all treated better than Gilad Shalit was.
isreal and ethics, integrity, honesty, bravery do not go well in the same sentence..
So, either you do not know isreal, or, you do not know the meaning of ethics, integrity, honesty..
Either way, you are a morron.. Check that; Freaking morron.
Hey Abdallah, Shut up and learn how to spell you Freaking MORON!!!!!!!!!! It is ISRAEL, not isreal, you MORON!!!
The Muslims have no concern for anyone but themselves, they have made that clear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocU5x_03MDM&feature=related
Let's take a closer look at that:
Israel lives amongst Jordan, Gaza, West Bank,Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt.
Not exactly a neighborhood known for it's acceptance of Jews no matter where they might be on the planet.
Yet, Israel doesn't have any real trouble with any other place except Gaza. No back and forth, rocket-fire-causes-Israeli-response, or multiple, repeated border assaults.
You have to have that 'peaceful coexistence' first, before deciding anything.
Can't really talk until the shooting stops first.
There was an incident in USSR when prisoners tried to go on hunger strike. They were force-fed. Had tubes shoved down their throats once a week. That's right, not every day, but only once a week, just enough to keep them alive but in agony. The strike was over within a month.
All of you who try to accuse Israel should just be happy that you are not dealing with Russians.
hey Damn,
Thanks for the spelling corrections A-hole.....
You think you got the idea with A-hole? Or I need to spell it for you?
Why is it?
My guess is that unlike evrybody else on the planet, who try to coexist with its neighbors, pursue peace, isreal must be doing something wrong...
Trying to exist in the only logical sliver of dirt on the planet. A place where they might avoid extinction.
Yet, the Muslim/Arab/Persian world is still filled with stories of 'Jews using the blood of their babies to make Passover Matzoh'.
I would've thought that the Pan-Muslim world, what with it's billions, would recognize that the threat to them was never the Jews.
Not the Jews; if you look at the history of the region.
And Israel doesn't even have oil. They work hard though, having won many prizes in the causes of Humanity.
That, and fending off all of her neighbors at one time or another since 1948.
Could you imagine what would happen if American prisioners went on a hunger strike? Lots of dead convicts.
Sounds like a plan to me Bruce. Personally, if someone wants to go a hunger strike for one goal or another, go for it. They will break down and decide to eat when they are hungry enough.
Unless they are like that woman who went on a "Sun ray" diet, and died of starvation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mlxMndnlzw
let them starve..., let them all starve, the Muslims won't be happy until they take over the world and have Sharia Law in every country; talk about a war on women.
The Irish first made this practice known as a means to protest against those in power who abused their power. This at least as a strategy is not blowing civilians up. There are always two sides to the story in any argument. Palestine has subsisted on welfare far too long and has used threats to get more aid. Unfortunately, much of it has been squandered instead of used for the building of their own infrastructure. The other Muslim countries have essentially made sure that this constant state of poverty overpopulation and anger is their only existence as they use the Palestinian people to be their knife at Israels throat. Israel is trying to survive it as well and their policies have been also separatist just as the Muslims separatist theocratic religion has caused the exodus of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people Christians Buddhists and other non Muslim groups.
I think that the Muslims have made it perfectly clear that they do not want to inhabit this planet with the rest of us, so they have given us few choices.
Actually, it was Mahatma Ghandi who started the hunger strike...but the Irish certainly followed. One thing is for sure...it can only...ONLY...be tried on people who have a conscience. There is no way that the Jews could have even imagined going on a hunger strike against their Nazi captors.
too bad..., it is much more cost effective not to feed Muslim prisoners; and if you release them they just find their way back and blow up.
To malocchio:
VOSTRO UN IDIOTA!!!!!!
malocchio, you are not the evil eye, as the word means in Italian. VOSTRO UN IDIOTA!!!!
Take your meds Dan, and then maybe participate in some good old fashioned in-breeding. We don't want to run out of God's chosen people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lUhlvFjXOQ
Educate yourself and stop being such a politically correct light-minded lemming malocchio.
With all that's going on in the world today in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, N.Korea, ...Why did you make this msnbc's Headline?
Because controvercy sells.
They want to die - OK - let them die.
They are not being held for jay walking.
This was really a temporary, smart move on Israels part. Just as Israel recently re-united 90 plus percent of its political parties. Israel did the same thing (political party wise) prior to the June 1967 war. Israel is getting closer to "fixing" the worlds problem with Iran, since it knows Obama is not going to do anything about it (unless his hand is forced).
Am I missing something here? You have the right to starve yourself, and I have the right to let you do so.
The infection is spreading in Northern Spain--
In December 2011, Islamic Sharia law arrived in the Basque Country when a Chechen immigrant attacked his 24-year-old son-in-law, a Christian, for marrying his 19-year-old daughter, a Muslim.
The victim, who goes by the pseudonym Julián Gómez because of the Islamic "death sentence" against him, said: "My father-in-law wants to kill me so that he can regain his honor because I am a Christian and I married his Muslim daughter. According to him, his daughter should only have married a Chechen Muslim."
The daughter said: "This seems as if it is a horror movie, but it is not. I have no doubt that my father is capable of killing my husband to get what he wants. And what he wants is to send me to Chechnya. All my father wants is that we know our native language and focus on our Chechen culture and religion. But I am Spanish. I was five years old when I arrived here. This cannot be."
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3057/basque-islam
Well,we had hoped for a better resolution to this-1600 live-oh well.....They all ran around there for thousands of years and Israel carved out the last piece.Oops palestinians,where is your piece?Maybe your brothers will give it to you?Isn't Israel the smallest country there? Sorry,move along.
The hunger strike is over? Now my day is ruined.
The days of the brutal, racist, aparthied government of israel is coming to an end. There are many good and sensible Israelis who have formed peace and reconciliation groups to try and thwart the thugs and murderers that run their government but the israeli right in conjunction with a U.S. congress that has been bought and sold by nutty christian bible thumpers and their lobbyists squashes every thing they say or try to do.
While israel controlls all of the water, poisens wells, burns orchards and bulldozes houses of the Palastinian people the world just sits back and watches.
Wake up israel. You are digging a hole that will take you nowhere.
Wow 20 conspiracy theories in just 1 dumb post.
Kate--you're a riot. Keep on keepin' on. Please!
Thanks Procrustes it's so easy with these dummies! I enjoy reading your posts as well, very informative.