Claiming victory, Palestinian security prisoners end 19-day hunger strike

Palestinian security prisoners ended their hunger strike yesterday as they declared their 19-day protest succeeded in achieving most of their demands.

The leadership of the Palestinian Prisoners' Club in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank announced yesterday that the prisoners, being held in more than a dozen prisons, decided to end their strike after a series of discussions with prison authorities.

In their statements, the leaders claimed that most of their demands had been met.

The Prisons Services announced there have been no talks with the prisoners, and that none of their demands were accepted.

The Palestinians claimed that the Prisons Services have agreed to end invasive body searches, allow food and televisions into their cells, broaden the rights to purchase food at the coop, improved medical treatment, and telephone rights.

"Most of the basic demands of the prisoners were met by the Prisons' Authority and therefore the prisoners decided to end their strike," says Isa Kraka, head of the Prisoner's Club in the West Bank.

Palestinian source did confirm that demands, such as the lifting of the glass panels separating the visitors from the prisoners and permitting cellular telephones into the prisoner cells, were not acceptable to the Prisons' Service.

In a telephone interview with Haaretz said that "we have managed to stop the dangerous deterioration in the rights of the prisoners' in recent years and the feeling that the prisons' management can change the rules of the game as it wishes. But in practice, with the exception of the invasive body searches that degraded the prisoners and that had to end, all the other demands were basic, such as improved quality of food, and the management had no trouble meeting them."

According to the prisoner leader, negotiations took place separately in each prison, and this posed a problem for the hunger strike leadership.

He also said that the prisoners were disappointed with the low level of interest that the Palestinian public showed to their struggle, both in the media and also in the Palestinian street.