05 Oct 2021; MEMO: Mohammed Al-Arida, one of six Palestinian prisoners who escaped from Israel's high-security Gilboa Prison on 6 September and was recaptured days later, yesterday started an open-ended hunger strike protesting the strict detention conditions he is being held under, the PLO's Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission said.
Al-Arida has been subject to harassment and harsh punitive measures imposed by the Israeli prison service since he was recaptured, Wafa news agency reported. These include keeping him in isolation for 14 days without any personal belongings, banning him from family visits and buying essentials from the canteen for two months, in addition to fining him.
He is being held in isolation without blankets or pillow in a small, dirty and unventilated cell that lacks the basic living standards. He has not been able to take a shower for days because he is being monitored around the clock by surveillance cameras.
Forty-six-year-old Al-Arida, from the town of Arraba near Jenin, was arrested in 1996 and he is serving a life sentence.
