Israel shuts hospitals to Palestinian hunger strikers
“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.
Israeli Public Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi, like Naveh a member of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s right-wing Likud party, said last week he didn’t care if the prisoners starved to death.
Seen by Palestinians as symbols of resistance to Israeli occupation, the inmates at 10 jails are refusing food to force wardens to stop strip searches, allow more frequent family visits, improve sanitation and install public telephones.
Israeli officials call the liquids-only fast that began on August 15 a ploy by prisoners to secure easier communication with militant groups waging a four-year-old Palestinian revolt.
About 7,000 Palestinians were taken into custody in security sweeps and are held by Israel. Among the inmates are those who openly identify with Islamic groups sworn to its destruction, and thus elicit little sympathy among the Israeli public.
Hisham Abdel-Razek, the Palestinian minister for prisoners’ affairs, called Naveh’s comments on the strikers “inhuman and arrogant.”
A Prisons Service spokesman said Israel had warned the prisoners in a leaflet they could be force-fed if critically ill, but that daily examinations found no serious health problems yet.
“None of the prisoners has required anything more than basic health care,” the spokesman, Ofer Leffler, said. “In fact, at least 124 of the prisoners have already broken the strike.”
Businesses and government offices across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Palestinians want for a state, closed yesterday in a show of solidarity with the prisoners.
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