Thousands march across West Bank and Gaza to mark Prisoners Day

Large demonstrations took place in Hebron, Gaza City, Jenin, Nablus, and Ramallah to mark the day of solidarity with the more than 5,000 Palestinian prisoners currently being held in Israeli prisons

AFP PHOTO / SAIF DAHLAH

by Ma’an

Bethlehem – At least ten Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces on Thursday as thousands participated in protests across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to commemorate the annual Palestinian Prisoners Day.

Large demonstrations took place in Hebron, Gaza City, Jenin, Nablus, and Ramallah to mark the day of solidarity with the more than 5,000 Palestinian prisoners currently being held in Israeli prisons.

The demonstrations took place amid a major row with Israel over its failure to release a batch of prisoners held for more than twenty years as previously agreed upon as a part of ongoing peace negotiations.

Hebron

Over 3000 protesters marched through the embattled southern West Bank city of Hebron raising Palestinian flags, images of Palestinian prisoners, and signs calling for an end to Israeli violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights on Thursday.

Israeli forces injured 10 Palestinians as they dispersed the protest, while dozens suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation from canisters fired by Israeli forces in the Bab al-Zawiya area of central Hebron.

Medics said that six people were shot with live ammunition in their lower extremities while others shot with rubber-coated steel bullets. The injured were taken to Hebron hospitals for treatment afterwards.

Israeli forces also detained the employees of a medical laboratory in the area during the clashes, and handcuffed them for a while before releasing them, medics said.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said that “dozens of Palestinians hurled rocks at security personnel, who responded with riot dispersal means,” confirming that several Palestinians had been hit.

Hebron governor Kamil Hmeid who participated in the demonstration, praised the resilience and steadfastness of people of Hebron in the face of the Israeli occupation.

Hmeid also reiterated that there will be no peace or stability until all Palestinian and Arab prisoners are released, especially the fourth group of veteran prisoners that Israel has refused to release, despite promises to the Palestinians as a condition to begin the current round of peace negotiations.
Gaza City

Hundreds of prisoners’ families and a number of Palestinian blocks took part in march that commenced from Sarayah square to the International Red Cross Committee headquarters in Gaza City to mark Palestinian Prisoners Day.

Protestors carried 250 caskets that were wrapped with the Palestinian flags, representing currently ill prisoners that protesters said would die without medical treatment denied to them by Israel.

Mothers of prisoners also took part in the march, holding pictures of their detained sons.

Jamil Mizher, a leader in Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Ma’an: “On Palestinian Prisoners Day, prisoners behind bars are demanding Palestinian leadership not to give in to American-Israeli pressure” to accept an alternative to freeing Palestinian prisoners.

He also called on Palestinian leadership to put the prisoners’ issue at the top of their priorities.

Mizher added that the resistance “in all its’ forms” is the best solution for freeing the prisoners.

‘Prisoners Day has extra importance this year’

Thousands also participated in rallies in Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin to mark the day, which comes amid a new deadlock in US-brokered peace talks that began in late March, just a month ahead of their deadline, when Israel reneged on its commitment to release a fourth and final batch of Palestinian inmates.

The Palestinians retaliated by seeking membership of several international treaties, breaking their commitment under the talks which US Secretary of State John Kerry launched in July.

“Prisoners Day has extra importance this year,” said the Palestinian Prisoners Club head, Abdel al-Anani.

“The prisoners issue has become one of global significance, since it is the reason that peace talks have almost collapsed,” he told AFP.

Prisoners minister Issa Qaraqe said in an interview with Voice of Palestine Radio that the move to sign up to the international treaties, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, could pave the way to guaranteeing Palestinian prisoners’ rights.

Palestinian legal rights NGO Adalah listed “administrative detention without formal charge or trial, severe restrictions on family visits, collective punishments such as solitary confinement, (and) violent night-time raids on inmates” as alleged abuses carried out by Israel.

Independent international commission urged

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestine Liberation Organisation official in a statement urged “the international community to expose Israel’s criminal treatment of Palestinian prisoners, to form an independent international commission to investigate violations committed by the Israel Prison Service.”

A one-day hunger strike was being observed by inmates to mark the annual show of solidarity with the nearly 5,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Qaraqe said.

Around 30 have been held behind bars since before the 1993 Oslo autonomy accords with Israel, Adalah said.

Israel has so far released 78 of the 104 prisoners it pledged to free during nine months of peace talks, most of them imprisoned since before the Oslo accords.

But it refused to free the final batch, using it as a bargaining chip to convince the Palestinians to extend negotiations until the end of the year.

The Palestinians demand their release before any discussion of an extension.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat on Thursday repeated calls for Israel to free the last group of inmates.

But Islamist group Hamas, which governs Gaza, opposes negotiations with Israel and regards the Palestinian Authority’s meetings with its sworn enemy as “illegitimate.”

“We are sending a message to the Palestinian negotiators: forget this farce, the futile negotiations, and come back to the resistance which freed prisoners,” a Hamas member said in a speech at Wednesday’s rally.

The Palestinian leadership has also launched an international campaign on behalf of some of the prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, one of the leaders of the second intifada, held since 2002, and secretary general of the far-left Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmad Saadat. Nena News