Tulkarem / PNN – Every week dozens of relatives of Palestinian political prisoners gather in front of the International Red Cross in the West Bank’s Tulkarem.
Families are demanding that conditions for their loved ones improve within the Israeli prison system.
The scene is familiar with photos of men, young and old, held framed in the laps of women. Within the Israeli prison system there are some 11,000 Palestinians according to statistics released by the Prisoners’ Society.
The weekly nonviolent resistance is joined by members of local government in the northwestern West Bank city where the photos are similar to those raised throughout Palestinian cities.
Families on hand in Tulkarem this week say there is little change for the better within the Israeli prisons, and a great deal for the worse. Some are banned from visiting for years at a time. Others are concerned about deteriorating health conditions in a system that is spotty at best about allowing medical care. Food, seasonal clothing, and general harassment and physical abuse are always on the table as issues.
Several public campaigns broke out within the past two weeks against the policy of solitary confinement in honor of a leader of the leftist party Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Ahmad Sa’adat had been on hunger strike from within prison to garner attention to his situation and that of others. It worked, but the leftist remains after three months in isolation.
Families in Tulkarem this week demanded intervention by the International Red Cross to address a short list of demands: end the suffering, force the Israeli administration to allow a number of patients into hospitals, end the policy of solitary confinement and lower the prices agt the prison store.
General secondary school completion exams, Tawjihi, are also being banned, which families say is a direct affront to international humanitarian law under which freedom of education is a right.
