Palestinian Prisoners on Hunger Strike

<p>SWANA collective members David Lloyd and Rana Sharif as they discuss the plight of Palestinian poltiical prisoners on hunger strikes. They are joined by prison activist Charlotte Kates to discuss the larger context of Israel’s regime of incarceration, its draconian repression of Palestinain civil society, and the work of prisoner solidarity. <strong>To declare your solidarity with the six Palestinian human rights organizations under Israeli assault, please visit, share, and take action with this social media toolkit: </strong><a href="http://bit.ly/SharePalOrgsLetter" target="_blank"><u><strong>bit.ly/SharePalOrgsLetter</strong></u></a></p> <p><strong>Charlotte Kates</strong> is the international coordinator of <a href="http://samidoun.net/" target="_blank">Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network</a>, a network of organizers and activists globally that works to build solidarity for the freedom of Palestinian prisoners and the liberation of Palestine. She also organizes with <a href="https://al-awda.org/" target="_blank">Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition</a> and the <a href="https://usacbi.org/" target="_blank">US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel</a>, and coordinates the <a href="https://nlginternational.org/" target="_blank">National Lawyers Guild International Committee</a>.</p> <p>Several Palestinian prisoners are currently in grave danger after a lengthy hunger strike in Israeli prisons. Grave concerns have been expressed for the lives of the prisoners by UN independent rights experts, who on Thursday, called on the Israeli Government to completely end the “unlawful practice “ of administrative detention. The five were also joined by a collective hunger strike, involving hundreds of prisoners, and including Mahmoud al-Ardah, one of the six Freedom Tunnel escapees, whose self-liberation from a maximum security jail shook Israel some weeks ago. That strike ended quickly, after succeeding in getting its demands met. Like so many of the 5,000 or so Palestinian pri