PA Prisoners Day (archive)
PA Prisoners Day (archive)Israel news photo: Flash 90

Palestinian Authority residents joined terrorists and security prisoners Tuesday in an open-ended hunger strike in another PR ploy for media attention for its unilateral demands for a state within Israel’s borders.

The Palestinian Authority is increasing the use of mass protests to attract media sympathy in the wake of its failure to force Israel to accept all of its political and territorial demands for becoming a state. It also has failed to win recognition as an independent state from the United Nations.

Hours before a scheduled meeting between PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the hunger strike coincided with the annual “Prisoners’ Day.”

Israeli authorities are expected to release Arab prisoner Khader Adnan, who had been on a hunger strike since February until last month, when Israel agreed to free him from administrative detention this week.

One of the objectives of the hunger strike is to stop the practice of administrative detentions, a policy used by the United States and most other countries in the world to temporarily hold suspected criminals and terrorists without trial and based on classified information.

Israel has released thousands of terrorists and security prisoners the past several years, but PA Prisoner’s Minster Issa Karakaa told the AFP news service that prison conditions have worsened.

Israel routinely allows prisoners to study for university degrees while in prison, and several Palestinian Authority Arabs have said they intentionally committed security crimes in order to be arrested and take advantage of the good conditions and benefits like the free study program.

In Lebanon, Palestinian Authority Arabs in two locations staged sympathy hunger strikes.