Palestinian hunger strike leader ate in secret – Israel
alleges
Israel says Palestinian hunger strike leader ate in
secretson Service released footage, on Sunday, that it says shows the leader of
a mass Palestinian hunger strike breaking his fast, a claim dismissed by the
Palestinians as an attempt to undermine the open-ended strike, now in its 21st
day.
A spokesman for the prison service, Assaf Librati, said
strike organiser and Palestinian uprising leader, Marwan Barghouti, ate a candy
bar on May 5 and cookies on April 27.
He said surveillance was increased and Barghouti was caught
on film eating.
Footage aired by Israeli media shows a prisoner sitting down
fully clothed on a toilet unwrapping something and putting it in his mouth.
Other footage shows a prisoner eating something near a sink.
Qadoura Fares, who heads an advocacy group for Palestinian
prisoners, cast doubt on the footage, saying Barghouti is being held in
solitary confinement and has no access to food.
“This is a fabrication,” Fares said of the footage released
Sunday.
“This is psychological warfare that we expected Israel to
wage against the strike.” He said that “the prisoners will not buy this account
from the Israeli side, and they will continue their strike.”
Barghouti, a leader of the second Palestinian uprising, is
serving five life terms after being convicted by an Israeli court of directing
two shooting attacks and a bombing that killed five people.
Barghouti, who disputed the court’s jurisdiction and did not
mount a defense, has been in prison since 2002.
Polls suggest that the 58-year-old Barghouti is the most
popular choice among Palestinians to succeed 82-year-old Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinians have held large rallies in support of the
hunger strike since it began. After decades of conflict, hundreds of thousands
of Palestinians have been imprisoned at one time or another for acts ranging
from stone-throwing to carrying out attacks that wounded or killed Israelis.
Palestinians say the mass hunger strike is an attempt to
improve conditions inside the jails and gain more family visits. Israeli
officials have dismissed the strike as a bid by Barghouti to burnish his
credentials in an internal Palestinian power struggle.
“This hunger strike was never about the conditions of the
convicted terrorists, which meet international standards,” Israeli Minister of
Public Security Gilad Erdan said.
“Barghouti is a murderer and hypocrite who urged his fellow
prisoners to strike and suffer while he ate behind their back.”
Fares said earlier Sunday that some of the hundreds of
Palestinians participating in the hunger strike began taking vitamin
supplements on day 15.
He said guards had punished the strikers by seizing all
personal items and leaving prisoners “with nothing except their beds.” He says
the information comes from lawyers who recently visited the strikers.
Israel holds about 6,500 Palestinians on charges related to
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel says 890 prisoners are participating
in the hunger strike. (AP)
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