As some 1,500 Palestinian prisoners entered the 11th day of the mass “Freedom and Dignity” hunger strike, Israeli ‘Prison Service’ (IPS) forces on Thursday attacked two hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners being held in southern Israeli Ashkelon prison, according to the Media Committee for Palestinian Prisoners’ Hunger Strike — a joint committee formed by the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) and Palestinian Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs.

A lawyer from the Palestinian Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs, Kareem Ajwah, said in a statement that that the two prisoners, Nasser Abu Hmeid and Saed Musallam, who is ill, were attacked by ‘IPS’ forces when they refused to stand for a search after the forces stormed into the prisoners’ room.

While Abu Hmeid and Musallam were directly attacked, three other prisoners in the room were injured on the face and head, and were moved to the prison’s clinic for treatment.

Separately, quoting Abu Hmeid, Ajwah reported that ‘IPS’ administration has been “conducting internal trials” for hunger-striking prisoners, imposing a series of punitive measures and fines of up to 500 “shekels” (The Zionist currency) for anyone participating in the strike, in addition to moving prisoners to solitary confinement for up to 10 days at a time.

“The condition of striking detainees are very difficult, due to the continued daily raids and storms of the prisons’ administration in an attempt to exhaust and humiliate the prisoners”, Abu Hmeid said, adding that ‘IPS’ has taken away salt — which in addition to water, is the only nutrition consumed by Palestinian hunger strikers — from all striking prisoners “as a means of pressure to end the strike.”

Abu Hmeid told the committee that striking prisoners have been boycotting medical examinations, highlighting that two prisoners identified as Nazih Uthman, who has heart disease, and Ibrahim Abu-mustafa , who has kidney and liver disease, were both moved by force to the prison’s field hospital.

Source: Ma'an News Agency