Why Palestinian President Abbas fears the prisoners’ hunger strike
NOVANEWS
By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, is due to meet Donald Trump in the White House on 3 May to discuss reviving the long-cold corpse of the peace process.
Back home, things are heating up. There is anger in the West Bank, both on the streets and within the ranks of Abbas’s Fatah movement. The trigger is a two-week-old hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners.
On 27 April, Palestinians shuttered their businesses in a show of solidarity, and the next day youths clashed with the Israeli army in a “day of rage”.
About a quarter of the 6,500 political prisoners held by Israel – almost all of them in Israeli territory, in violation of international law – are refusing food in protest at their degrading treatment. They want reforms to Israel’s indus...