Israeli authorities have canceled family visits to the approximately 1,500 Palestinian prisoners who have been on hunger strike in protest of their prison conditions in Israel jails since yesterday.
Barghouti, now serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for his role in deadly terror attacks during the second intifada (uprising), accused Israel of "inhumane" treatment of prisoners and "judicial apartheid" in a New York Times opinion piece published Sunday outlining the reasoning for the strike.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas called on the worldwide community "to intervene to save the lives of Palestinian prisoners who have opened hunger strikes... in light of the Israeli government's narrow-mindedness and refusal to accept the prisoners' just and humanitarian demands". According to Palestinian media reports, Zomlot spoke with Michael Ratney, the diplomat now in charge of the Israeli-Palestinian file at the State Department, about the reasons for the hunger strike and the demands raised by the prisoner leaders.
Other requirements include installing air condition systems, allowing prisoners to keep books, newspapers, clothes, and food, as well as stopping administrative detentions, an indefinable incarceration without charges for renewable periods of six months, and solitary containment.
Shortly after last week's announcement of the hunger strike, Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan asked for the creation of a military hospital to ensure that hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners were not transferred to civilian hospitals, which have so far refused to force feed hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners, Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency reported. "It is to be emphasized that the (prison service) does not negotiate with prisoners".
Israeli prisons hold around 6,500 Palestinians, including 300 minors.
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Two leading Israeli human rights groups describe the conditions in prisons such as Shikma Prison in southern Israel as "hellish", with some inmates reportedly shackled to chairs during interrogation and held in solitary confinement in cramped and foul smelling cells no more than two metres long.
"Palestinian prisoners and detainees have suffered from torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, and medical negligence", Barghouti said.
"The Israeli government will be responsible for any and all of the consequences of this hunger strike - if a prisoner dies, or becomes extremely ill, they are the ones that will have to handle the outcome".
Israel said the move by the prisoners, many of whom were convicted of attacks or planning attacks against Israel, was politically motivated.
More hardline still was the reaction by Israel's intelligence and transportation minister, who tweeted that Barghouti should have been executed after his conviction for murder in 2004 in an Israeli court.
The UN Security Council will discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during an open debate on Thursday.
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