First Red Cross Visit for Palestinian Hunger Strike Leader

Marwan Barghouti – Flash90 file photo.

Jerusalem, 15 Sha’ban 1438/12 May 2017 )MINA) – The Red Cross visited the leader of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails on Thursday for the first time since the strike began, Arab News reported, citing a spokesman.

A delegate from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited strike leader Marwan Barghouti on Thursday morning, the spokesman told AFP, the first such visit since the strike began 25 days ago.

The spokesman was unable to provide an update on his health “in accordance with the principles of medical confidentiality.”

The ICRC had been allowed access to other prisoners on hunger strike, but Israel had been restricting access to Barghouti.

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners began refusing food on April 17, issuing a list of demands including better medical services, family visits and more dignified detention conditions.

Israel says conditions meet all international standards.

Barghouti, a senior member of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party and a highly popular figure among Palestinians, is serving life sentences over his role in the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising.

Earlier this week, Israel produced footage they said showed him secretly breaking his fast in his cell.

His wife Fadwa rejected the footage as fake, saying it was “intended to break the morale of prisoners.” (T/RS5/RS1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)