A British-Palestinian man has started a hunger strike in Parliament Square in London in solidarity with more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners who are demanding better conditions in Israeli jails.
Aysar Shamallakh is now on the fourth day of his hunger strike and is only consuming salt and water.
On April 17, which is Palestinian Prisoners Day, imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Bargouthi called for the hunger strike to put pressure on the Israeli authorities.
Shamallakh said: “Our action today is to deliver our message to the people in that building behind us there which is the House of Parliament, to the politicians, to the people who make decisions, you need to look and see what’s going on.
“My hunger strike is an open hunger strike, and there is no specific deadline. My deadline to end this hunger strike is when the Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli Jails end their strike first, and I will be the last to end it.”
Shamallakh has moved into a caravan near Parliament Square in a symbolic sacrifice to support his Palestinian brethren.
He added: “I have a lovely family, I have lovely kids, I have a very reasonable life, a very good job, all of that is very important, at the same time, we have prisoners who are on hunger strike, their life is really in danger now.”
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There are around 6.500 Palestinians currently languishing in Israeli prisons, many of them women and children.
About 500 are being held under Israel’s system of administrative detention, which allows for imprisonment without charge.
For Palestinians, prisons have become a stark symbol of Israel’s occupation. Palestinian prisoners have mounted repeated hunger strikes, but rarely on such a scale.
Some 850,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned since 1967, Palestinian leaders say.
The strikers are calling for immediate improvements in jail, including longer family visits, proper medical attention, phone access, and an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention.
