Palestinian hunger strike committee calls for commercial strike

The committee said all shops must shut down from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday to express support for the hunger strike. A general strike called for by the committee on the 11th day of the strike was widely observed across the occupied West Bank, as thousands of Palestinians shut down their shops and businesses in solidarity with hunger strikers.

The following day, widespread clashes erupted across the occupied West Bank, with several Palestinians being injured.

On Monday, the national committee urged Palestinians to clash with Israeli forces again in the coming days, as the Palestinian people mark the 69th anniversary of the Nakba, when approximately 750,000 Palestinians were forcible displaced from their lands during the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

Palestinians were scattered in refugee camps across the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, with Palestinian refugees and their descendants now amounting to over five million people, according to the United Nations.

In its statement, the committee also urged the United Nation's Security Council and General Assembly, along with other international human rights groups, to protect hunger-striking prisoners and coerce the Israeli government to respect international conventions and laws.

Some 1,300 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, out of the total of 6,300 Palestinians held by Israel, have been calling for an end to the denial of family visits, the right to pursue higher education, appropriate medical care and treatment, and an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention -- imprisonment without charge or trial -- among other demands for basic rights.



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