Local Editor

More than 300 Palestinians are currently participating in an open hunger strike in "Israeli" prisons, the Palestinian Prisoner's Society [PPS] said on Thursday.

PPS said that 285 detainees held at the Eshel and Nafha detention camps entered an open hunger strike on Thursday to protest suppressive measures by the "Israeli" Prison Service [IPS], while some 40 detainees from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP] were striking in support of fellow detainee Bilal Kayid.

Kayid enters his 51st day of hunger strike on Thursday in protest of being sentenced to administrative detention -- internment without trial or charges -- on the day when he was meant to be released from prison after serving a 14-and-a-half year sentence.

Kayid is one of six Palestinian detainees currently on hunger strike to protest their administrative detention. These hunger strikers included brothers Mahmoud and Muhammad al-Balboul, who began their hunger strikes on July 4 and 7 respectively; Malik al-Qadi; and Ayyad Hreimi, who both began their strikes on July 15.

Meanwhile, prominent detained Palestinian journalist Omar Nazzal began his own open hunger strike on Thursday.

The Zionist policy of administrative detention, almost exclusively used against Palestinians, has been widely criticized by rights group that have accused the "Israeli" apartheid regime of using the policy to erode Palestinian political and social life by detaining scores of Palestinians without proof of wrongdoing.

The ongoing detainees' movement inspired sit-ins across the occupied Palestinian territory organized by families of incarcerated hunger strikers and their supporters.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team