Hamas spokesman Hussan Budran vowed revenge on Israel on Tuesday, calling on Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria to “fulfill their obligations” to hurt IDF soldiers and attack Jewish communities.
“Israel will pay a heavy price in blood until it could be persuaded to solve the problem of hunger striking prisoners,” he warned, in an interview with Al-Quds Al-Arabiya.
On Monday, the Knesset approved a bill to force-feed hunger strikers on its first reading, sparking a debate about the “right to protest” between Knesset MKs.
The Government bill seeks to authorize the Commissioner of Prisons to petition the District Court to obtain a permit for medical treatment of hunger-striking prisoners.
The court will take into account the opinions of the ethics committee of the hospital where the hunger-striker/patient is being held, except in urgent cases, and will be required to consider the medical condition and mental state of the prisoner, the degree of intrusiveness of the treatment and its impact on the prisoner’s dignity.
In addition, the court will take into account the prisoner’s wishes and his reasons for the strike, the results of similar treatments given to the prisoner in the past, as well as considerations of national security, public safety and the impact the decision on the ability to maintain order and security in the prison.
Arab MKs attacked the bill as a “violation of human rights” and insisted that the bill aims not to save lives, but to cloud the government’s “responsibility” for caring for terrorist prisoners. It should be noted that hunger strikes are a common tactic by Palestinian Arab terrorists to gain political visibility for their cause in the international community.
Several weeks ago, hundreds of Palestinian Arab terrorist prisoners declared a hunger strike in “solidarity” with a Hamas prisoner’s solitary confinement. The terrorists ended the hunger strike just hours after it began.
Some 1,550 Palestinian Arabs imprisoned in Israel ended a hunger strike in May 2012, in exchange for a package of measures which would allow visits from relatives in Gaza and the transfer of detainees out of solitary confinement.
