Mahmoud Sarsak and Akram al-Rekhawi

May 17, 2012

On Thursday, 17th May, a report issued by Palestinian Prisoners' society revealed that three Palestinians still continue with their hunger strike since 17th April, despite the signed agreement between the Israeli prisons' administration and Palestinian prisoners. The striking-prisoners are: Mahmoud Sarsak, Akram al-Rekhawi and Mohammad Abdul Aziz, who are now in the hospital of al-Ramlah Israeli prison.

Israeli authorities had made a deal with Mahmoud Sarsak, a Palestinian detainee who is on his 61 days of Hunger Strike that he would be released on 1 July, yet Israel subsequently broke the deal, so he never broke the hunger strike.

The two other prisoners, Akram al-Rikhawi and Mohammad Abdul Aziz's demands were that they would be allowed to be presented again before the Military Court.

Sarsak is from Gaza Strip, who was detained in 2009, Akram al-Rikhawi is from Gaza and was detained in 2004, and Mohammad Abdul Aziz Abu Labdeh is also from Gaza and is in Israeli prison since 2000.

Prisoners told the prisoners' centre for studies that yesterday, 16th May, Israeli prisons' administration had beaten Mohammed Taj, a Palestinian detainee, and immediately put him in the solitary confinement in al-Jalameh to pressure him to end his hunger strike, as he had spent 65 days on hunger strike protesting against the Prison Service for not treating him as a Prisoner of War.

Prisoners also said that Taj, who was sentenced for 15 years, was a Director General of the Palestinian National Security Forces and now suffers from a serious pain in his eyes and body and that his health condition is deteriorated.

The released prisoner Ra'fat Hamdouna, director of prisoners' centre for studies and a member of the prisoners' committee for the National and Islamic forces called on the senior leadership of the strike to follow up the case of Taj, and called on the legal unit in the prisoners' society, Jihad Bolus on top of them, to pay him an immediate visit to check on his health.

Source