Israel shuts hospitals to Palestinian hunger strikers

ISRAEL declared its hospitals off-limits yesterday to the 2,800 Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli prisons, saying they could be treated in makeshift facilities behind bars if taken ill.

“I am not prepared for there to be a situation where the lives of patients and medical teams are endangered in our hospitals as a result of us having to admit these murderers,” Health Minister Danny Naveh told Army Radio.

“If a field hospital has to be set up at a Prisons Service installation, then that is what should be done,” Naveh said.