Palestinian prisoners in PA detention begin hunger strike

A group of young men in Palestinian Authority prisons have started a hunger strike after being held for nearly three months.

Eleven young men from the village of Urif in Nablus in the occupied West Bank on Saturday declared a hunger strike in a PA prison, which has been holding them and allegedly mistreating them for 11 weeks.

The families of the political detainees explained that the prisoners are forced to endure poor conditions and have been subjected to beatings and psychological tortures since their arrest, and the authorities are pressuring them to deny that they have been tortured.

The arrests in Urif came with the start of the popular protests in support for Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, in which the detainees pledged support for Hamas.

Among the detainees is prisoner Yassin Shehadeh, who has been held with twenty other men from the town in Jericho prison since the beginning of the uprising for Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority Court in Nablus extended the detention of the prisoner Muhammad Al-Koni by four days, despite his poor health and his need for an urgent operation, according to the Palestinian Information Center. He has been on a hunger strike for five days.

This comes as Palestinians mourned government critic Nizar Banat after he died in PA custody after security forces stormed his house on Thursday. His family have alleged that he was badly beaten during the raid.

His funeral was held on Friday in the West Bank city of Hebron and was attended by a crowd chanting "your blood won’t be in vain" and demanding authorities investigate his death.