Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction

Thirteen United Nations Organisations currently operating in the occupied Palestinian territories have added their voices to the growing number of those concerned about the plight of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention. Up to 3,500 political prisoners are now on hunger strike in protest at the abysmal prison conditions, which breach the Fourth Geneva Convention and other internationally accepted norms on the treatment of prisoners.

Despite this, the Israeli authorities are taking harsh measures to break the hunger strike, now into its 18th day, and have announced they will learn lessons from other countries, including Ireland.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, there are currently over 8,000 Palestinian prisoners held by the Israelis on 'security grounds', of whom 90 are women and 360 are children. Here, EÓIN MURRAY, an Irish human rights worker in Palestine, writes of the atmosphere in Gaza City.

As you trudge up Omar al Mukhtar Street, the main artery running through Gaza City from the sea to the fiery neighbourhoods you hear about on the news like Zeitoun or Shejiya, you will pass the headquarters of the Palestinian police. This building used to be the headquarters of the Israeli Army (IDF) during their sojourn here in the first Intifada. However, after the Oslo Accords, it was handed over to the "control" of the Palestinian security services who now lounge around outside afraid to go in for fear of an Israeli missile hitting it while they are inside.

Just opposite this imposing building is the park of the Unknown Soldier, one of Gaza's few greenspots. Since 15 August, this public space has been taken over. Now all across it fly the green flags of Hamas, the yellow of Fatah, the red of Islamic Jihad and the black of the PFLP. These flags are not flags indicating danger, like those on the beach of Gaza — well, they indicate danger of a different sort. Slip into the park and you enter a warren of tents with people shiftily standing around smoking, others praying and yet others still hidden from the light inside the tents.

It is the ones who refuse the intense Gaza sunlight that my attention is immediately drawn to. They seem to shy away from all the other crowds of people, preferring instead to lie on beds, in as much darkness as they can find. They are wrapped in thin blankets and each one of them, men and women (who considerably outnumber the men — which is quite rare for any public event in Gaza) look absolutely miserable. So they should; these people have been refusing food in solidarity with the striking Palestinian prisoners.

There are 8,000 Arab and Palestinian political prisoners detained in Israeli prisons and military detention facilities. Some 3,500 of them are currently on hunger strike. Their conditions of detention have continued to deteriorate over a long period of time and this deterioration has been accelerated since the start of the current Intifada. Prisoners are routinely subjected to torture, degrading treatment and humiliation; prevented from having family visits; subjected to humiliating strip searches in front of other prisoners; placed in solitary confinement for extended periods of time; provided with inadequate and unhealthy food; and prevented from pursuing educational and other recreational activities.

Israeli Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi says that these people are "terrorists" and should be allowed "starve to death". Most of these people were not arrested for military activities (the IDF tend to use lethal force rather than arrest against people engaged in military activities against them). In fact, although a large proportion of them are in jail for political activities and membership of political parties, many of them have been arbitrarily arrested for no apparent reason.

A friend of mine in Gaza works with a man, called Ahmed, who is now supporting his own family and his brother's family (a total of 14 people) on his salary of US$400 a month. Ahmed's brother went to Israel one day eight years ago to go to work and never came back.

Last week, the family received their first communication that he was on hunger strike. This is the first thing they have heard from him since that day he left to go to work. There are literally hundreds of similar cases of Palestinian civilians doing nothing but minding their own business, trying to support their families, who have been arrested by the IDF. In the Gaza Strip, at some point, most men have or will spend at least some time in an Israeli prison or detention facility. It is hard to find anyone who has not experienced the horrendous conditions.

Listening to their stories is harrowing and made even more harrowing as a result of the fact that the Israeli authorities have stated categorically that they will learn from the lessons of breaking the hunger strikers in Ireland. I'm too young to remember the riot outside the British Embassy in Dublin in 1981 in protest at the horrific treatment meted out by Thatcher against Irish political prisoners. But the sense of injustice still resonates within me and that sense is easy to see on the streets and in the solidarity tents in Gaza.

The people on solidarity strike are mothers and wives whose husbands disappeared or sons who can never see their fathers because they are detained in Israeli prisons they are not allowed to visit.

"Whatever you do to the least of my people you do unto me" -- in any society, prisoners are among the most neglected, the most rejected and the most vilified. How the state of Israel treats its prisoners is how it would treat you and I if we were in a similar predicament, trying to end an illegal occupation, or simply trying to feed our families.

It is important that we all pressurise our own government as well as the Israeli Government into changing their policy and their approach. We should not stand idly by.