The forgotten Palestinian prisoners
The Palestinian prisoner cause is suffering from a lack of public interest, poor local media coverage and no political support.
AL-BIREH, West Bank — While Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas presses Israel to release the final batch of long-term Palestinian prisoners, thousands others are languishing in Israeli jails, and their plight unheard by the main Palestinian factions.
Nahed al-Aqra, 42, is a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli occupation jail who lost both legs. Every Tuesday, his mother, Umm Mazen, participates in a weekly sit-in in front of the Red Cross headquarters in the city of al-Bireh in the center of the West Bank. A handful of officials and parents of detainees also take part in these sit-ins.
Despite the public, factional and organizational absence from the events in support of the detainees, Umm Mazen does not tire of holding a picture of her son sitting in a wheelchair at the weekly sit-in.
According to an unpublished report prepared by the Palestinian Prisoners Club, a copy of which was obtained by Al-Monitor, the number of detainees in Israeli prisons reached over 5,000 in early 2014. Three detainees have been on an open hunger strike for about two months now, while four others are in solitary confinement. Despite this, public support events remain mostly “weak and inefficient.”
