SILWAD, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES // Palestinians clashed with Israeli soldiers across the occupied West Bank on Friday in support of hundreds of Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli prisons.
Clashes took place near Israeli settlements and army checkpoints close to several villages in the Ramallah area, as well as by Hebron in the southern West Bank and many other locations further north.At the same time, Israel’s housing ministry announced it intends to build 15,000 new settlement homes in East Jerusalem.
In the village of Silwad Palestinian protesters threw stones at Israeli troops manning a military tower, and soldiers retaliated by firing stun grenades and tear gas at them. The Palestinian Red Crescent said eight Palestinians were wounded in clashes across the West Bank.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said that around 2,000 Palestinians took part in what she called “violent riots” across the West Bank and had been “dispersed”. She gave no other details.
The clashes — on a day usually dedicated to anti-Israeli protests — came on the 12th day of a hunger strike by hundreds of prisoners in Israeli jails.
Palestinian officials says some 1,500 Palestinian prisoners were ingesting only water and salt. Israeli authorities have put the number of the hunger strikers at 1,200.
The International Committee of the Red Cross — the only organisation that can access Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons — said its delegates visited hundreds of hunger strikers, after being denied access for nine days.
The hunger strike began on April 17 and is being led by Marwan Barghouti, a prominent Palestinian leader and prisoner who is serving five life sentences for murder over his role in the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, of 2000 to 2005.
Barghouti, a member of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, is popular among Palestinians, with polls suggesting he could win the Palestinian presidency.
Khaled Meshaal, chief of the rival Palestinian faction Hamas — the Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip — spoke on Friday about “the imperative to unite behind the cause of the prisoners”.
The prisoners have issued demands ranging from better medical care to phone access.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club warned early this week that Barghouti’s health has seriously declined and that he was refusing medical treatment.
Some 6,500 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel for a range of offences and alleged crimes.
Around 500 are being held under Israel’s system of administrative detention, which allows for imprisonment without charge.
Palestinian prisoners have mounted repeated hunger strikes, but rarely on such a scale.
In Jersualme, housing minister Yoav Galant told Israel Radio that his ministry and the Jerusalem municipality had been working for two years on the plan to build 25,000 units in all.
Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, said Israel’s move was a systematic violation of international law and a “deliberate sabotage” of efforts to resume peace talks.
“All settlements in occupied Palestine are illegal under international law,” he said. “Palestine will continue to resort to international bodies to hold Israel, the occupation power, accountable for its grave violations of international law throughout occupied Palestine.”
The new settlements also ignore Us president Donald Trump’s plea for the Israelis to “hold back” on settlement building as part of a possible move towards reviving the peace process. A formal announcement of the plan in full could be made on May 24, when Israel will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the capture of the eastern part of Jerusalem. Mr Trump is expected to arrive on May 22 or shortly after.
* Agence France Presse and Reuters
