Alwaght- A prominent Palestinian resistance figure in Israeli prisons declared an open-ended hunger strike on Sunday.
Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement in occupied territories and Palestinian resistance icon, has declared an open-ended hunger strike in protest of his prison conditions.
Salah’s lawyer Omar Khamaisa said the strike was meant to protest Salah being held in solitary confinement.
“Salah is protesting the bad treatment and the policy of holding him in solitary confinement,” Khamaisa said.
The resistance figure has been kept in solitary confinement for six months and now the Israeli regime is preventing him from meeting any other Palestinian detainees.
“This is a brazen assault on the rights of Salah and all Palestinian detainees, who are suffering from the [Israeli] policy of solitary confinement,” the lawyer said.
In May, Salah began to serve a 9-month jail sentence for “incitement”. He is being held in the Ramon Prison in southern Israeli occupied territories.
Salah is only allowed to meet his family members once every two weeks.
Salah was born in 1958 in the city of Umm al-Fahm and later studied Islamic Law at the University of al-Khalil (Hebron) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
He served as mayor of Umm al-Fahm for three consecutive terms between 1987 and 2001.
In 1996, Salah was elected leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in occupied territories, known for holding daily protests at al-Aqsa Mosque against threats to the iconic mosque by the Israeli authorities.
