Last-minute reprieve

The plight of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails for 41 days may have ended as, reportedly, they ended their protest after Israel agreed to some of their demands.

The top United Nations human rights official had urged Israel to improve the conditions for Palestinians in custody as the situation of those on hunger strike, fast deteriorating, finally seemed to draw some attention.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said his office had received reports that the Israel Prison Service had taken at least 60 hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners to hospitals because their medical condition had worsened; 592 were recently moved for observation to infirmaries set up in the prisons.

The hunger strike was called by much-respected Marwan Barghouthi in protest against, among others, solitary confinement, the Israeli policy of administrative detention, which is arbitrary jailing without trial, denial of family visits and restricted access to lawyers; the last a violation of a fundamental protection in international human rights law.

Now, after repeated vows by Israeli authorities not to negotiate with the jailed Palestinians, and after 20 hours of talks between Israeli officials and Barghouthi, it is reported that the Palestinians will stop the protest.

Israelis insist the deal was reached not with prisoners’ representative but with the Palestinian Authority and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Israel was stubbornly clinging to its position. Apparently, however, pressure from ICRC, whose doctors visiting the prisoners warned about “potential irreversible health consequences”, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ urging US President Donald Trump to raise the issue with the Israelis while he himself raised it with Trump’s Ambassador Jason Greenblatt, demonstrations across the West Bank and the approaching date marking 50 year of occupation made Israelis see the danger of ignoring the suffering of the jailed Palestinians and concede to one of their main demands: two family visits a month instead of the one before.

Israel’s intransigence is not new, but totally in line with its inhumane occupation. What is shocking, however, is to see the world keep mum on a clear infringement of human rights.

With the exception of the UN High Commissioner and the International Red Cross Committee, the international community is oblivious to the tragedy of Palestinians in Israel, be it in jails or outside, in the bigger prison.

Now that some agreement seems to have been reached, one can only wait to see whether Israel honours it.

For the sake of the jailed Palestinians, one hopes it does.