RAMALLAH: The health of three Palestinian prisoners is rapidly deteriorating as they continue a hunger strike that they began on November 28, Addameer Prisoner Support Network said in a statement. Jazzer Azzidine, Yousef Yassin, and Tarek Qa'adan began their hunger strike on November 29 just one week after all three were arrested during sweeping Israeli military raids across the West Bank. The three men are being held in administrative detention, in which they are held in Israeli military prisons without charge or trial on “secret evidence." They have limited access to their lawyers, and their families receive little to no information on their status. According to an Addameer lawyer, they are being held in isolation in Ramleh prison clinic. The statement added that “all have difficulty seeing well, are dizzy and constantly have headaches. They also have pain in their joints and are suffering from general fatigue." Samer Al-Issawi is on a partial hunger strike that has exceeded 170 days. Another prisoner, Ayman Shawarna, ended a 180-day hunger strike earlier this month. In April 2011, over 2,000 prisoners captured international attention when they launched a mass hunger strike that forced Israeli Prison Service officials to cede many of their demands. As of December 2012, Addameer estimates that there are 4,656 Palestinians in Israeli military prisons. 178 of them are administrative detainees, and 21 of them are under the age of 16. Another 13 prisoners are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and 111 have been held since before the 1994 Oslo Accords. BN
