Palestinian Prisoners on 2nd Day of Hunger Strike, Israeli Minister Orders , Execution

YemenExtra

Y.A

An Israeli minister has called for the execution of distinguished Palestinian prisoner Marwan Bargouti, as over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have been since Monday on a hunger strike in an attempt to improve their conditions in the Israeli jails.

Intelligence and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said on Tuesday that Barghouti , is presently guiding the hunger strike, should have been given the death as a punishment  instead of life imprisonment.

Speaking to 103.fm radio Tuesday, Katz said “the present  law allows for the death penalty to be applied to convicted terrorists but prosecutors have consistently refrained from seeking the punishment.”

He said Barghouti had been placed in solitary confinement because calling for the hunger strike was against prison rules.

Some 6,500 Palestinians are presently in Israeli jails. Of those, 62 are women and 300 are minors. Some 500 are arrested  under administrative detention, which allows for imprisonment without charge.

“Decades of experience have proved that Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation aims to break the spirit of prisoners and the nation to which they belong, by inflicting suffering on their bodies, separating them from their families and communities, using humiliating measures to compel subjugation,” Barghouti wrote in a New York Times opinion piece.

“In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it.”