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Several Palestinians who had been rearrested in Israel after being freed because of a prisoner exchange are going to stage a hunger strike on Tuesday, Ramallah-based Prisoners’ Club said on Monday. The strike will be observed by 63 of the 1,027 prisoners who were freed by a swap arrangement in 2011.
Since June, when 3 Israeli teens were allegedly kidnapped and killed by Palestinian extremists, over 2,000 people have been arrested by Israeli authorities across annexed East Jerusalem and occupied West Bank, the Prisoner’s Club said in a statement.
The prisoners’ strike has been timed to coincide with the resumption of talks between Palestine and Israel in Egypt – the two will engage in indirect talks to cement the terms of the Gaza ceasefire. They will discuss several issues, potentially including a new prisoner exchange.
The strike’s aim is to “demand that the Palestinian negotiators find a solution to the situation and ensure their release as quickly as possible”, the statement read.
The talks are not expected to last beyond a day as the Jewish New Year holiday starts at sundown on Wednesday; it is not clear for how long the hunger strike might be held.
According to Bassem al-Salhi, one of the members of the Palestinian delegation said that Tuesday’s meeting will “allow a timetable to be put in place for (talks which would take place) after Eid al-Adha.”
“Since the start, the Palestinians have asked that the prisoners question be discussed, but the Israelis have categorically refused to deal with this matter”, he added.
Among the things the two teams are expected to talk about in Cairo are the reconstruction of Gaza, the Palestinian demand for opening an airport and a sea port, and Israel’s insistence of the complete demilitarization of Gaza. According to the Prisoners’ Club, over 7,000 Palestinians are currently in prisons in Israel.