The Handala Center for Prisoners and Ex-prisoners reported on Monday that more than 300 prisoners in the Israeli Ofer prison are preparing to join an open-ended hunger strike. 

The center stated in a statement that the strike is scheduled to start next Thursday in protest against the ongoing crimes of the prison administration against prisoners in addition to their exposure to harsh incarceration conditions. 

Since the death of their fellow prisoner, Dawood Al-Khatib, on the second of September, the prisoners in Ofer prison have been subjected to almost daily crackdowns. Also, there have been dozens of injuries recorded among the prisoners as a result of being sprayed with gas and assaulted with severe beating and police dogs during the storming operations.

In response, the prisoners in Ofer took protest steps during the past days and the prison’s administration responded with more repression and incursions. Besides, the administration transferred 34 prisoners.

The number of prisoners in Ofer is about 850 and they are facing an increase in the number of people infected with the coronavirus which has reached nearly 24 prisoners.

The Israeli occupation authorities hold more than five thousand Palestinians in its prisons including children and put them in detention and living conditions that lack the lowest standards of hygiene and sanitary conditions.

The Israeli prison service and its forces have escalated the raids into prisons since the beginning of last year which witnessed the most violent repression in years and continued such practice during the current year 2020.

 

Source: The Palestinian Information Center