Prison (illustrative)
Prison (illustrative)Flash 90

A group of 80 terrorists who are serving prison terms in the Rimon Prison in Israel will on Friday begin an indefinite hunger strike in protest of the Israel Prison Service's policy of “oppression”, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club announced Thursday.

The alleged “oppression” is expressed in the form of guards allegedly “breaking into” prisoners' cells and conducting “degrading” searches, the announcement said.

The Prisoners' Club further announced that other groups of terrorists in other Israeli jails will join the hunger strike starting this coming Sunday.

Some 300 terrorist prisoners already began a hunger strike on Thursday, including 40 terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who are hunger striking in support of Bilal Al-Kayed, a PFLP terrorist who started a hunger strike in protest of his administrative detention.

Kayed has set “non-negotiable” preconditions for stopping his hunger strike, informing Israeli authorities he will agree to resume eating if his administrative detention ends after four months and his relatives are allowed to visit him in prison.

Jailed terrorists have repeatedly used hunger strikes as a pressure tactic aimed at forcing Israel to release them out of fear for their lives. Israel has several times in the past caved to the pressure and released some hunger strikers.

Some 1,550 Palestinian Arabs imprisoned in Israel ended a hunger strike in May 2012, in exchange for a package of measures which would allow visits from relatives in Gaza and the transfer of detainees out of solitary confinement.

Most recently, Palestinian Arab journalist Mohammed al-Qiq was released from prison after a hunger strike. Before him, the most famous case of a terrorist who went on a hunger strike and was ultimately freed was that of Mohammed Allan, who was freed by Israel at the beginning of November 2015.