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Palestinian prisoners in Israel go on hunger strike after inmate death

Xinhua, September 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails announced Sunday a three-day hunger strike after a Palestinian inmate died, Israeli authorities and Palestinian media said.

Israel Prison Service Spokesman Assaf Librati confirmed to Xinhua that Yasser Dhiab Hamdouneh, a Palestinian from the West Bank city of Jenin, was pronounced dead on Sunday morning.

"He collapsed during morning workout," Librati said without elaborating on the cause of death.

An ambulance was called to the Damon Prison in northern Israel, where Hamdouneh was held, but "the resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful," Librati said.

Palestinian media reported that Hamdouneh apparently suffered a cardiac arrest or a stroke.

According to the Palestinian Ma'an news agency, the Palestinian prisoners announced a three-day hunger strike to protest his death. Hamdouneh suffered from several health issues, including shortness of breath, heart problems, and ear pains, Ma'an reported.

Hamdouneh served a life sentence for killing an Israeli merchant in the West Bank in 2003.

According to Addameer, a Palestinian prisonoers' rights organisation, Israel maintains a "deliberate policy of neglect" of the health of Palestinians in jails.

Palestinian prisoners and detainees often go on hunger strikes to protest their harsh imprisonment conditions and administrative detention, an indefinable incarceration without charges for renewable periods of six months.

Librati said that the Prison Service will establish a committee to probe the death of Hamdouneh, a routine procedure in case of death of prisoners.

"Apparently, there was nothing unusual about his death," he said. Endit