Palestinian hunger strikers urge Pope to speak out against Israel

Hunger striking Palestinian prisoners have written to Pope Francis, urging the pontiff to immediately take a stance against the Israeli regime with regard to the ordeals of Palestinian inmates.

The appeal was delivered in a letter by Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of imprisoned hunger strike leader Marwan Barghouti, at a meeting with the heads of the Catholic Church in Ramallah.

The Vatican has recognized Palestine as a state.

The letter urged Pope Francis to speak out on the issue of hunger strike “to help save the lives of sons, husbands and fathers, to speak for the women and the children in Israeli prisons, to speak about this holy land that has been desecrated by occupation, discrimination, segregation and apartheid, while it needs to be a land of pluralism.”

“I hope this message reaches you and you can intervene before it is too late,” Barghouti wrote.

Since April 17, more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners have joined the protest action, dubbed the Freedom and Dignity Strike, which was initially called by Barghouti, a former Fatah movement leader.

The strikers are demanding basic rights such as an end to the policies of administrative detention, solitary confinement and deliberate medical negligence.

The much criticized administrative detention is a policy under which Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli detention facilities without trial or charge.

The letter said there are currently 6,500 Palestinians in prison in Israel, including 300 children and 57 women, 13 lawmakers and 500 administrative detainees