Hundreds of Palestinians rallied this evening in downtown Ramallah, in the central West Bank, demanding Israeli occupation authorities to immediately release prisoner Walid Daqqa, a Palestinian in Israeli prisons since 1986 who is currently battling death as a result of advanced bone marrow cancer. The protesters also expressed their support for the hunger-striking Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, who are fasting in protest of their unfair detention without charges or trial. They raised photos of prisoner Daqqa and the hunger-striking detainees, in addition to banners calling for his immediate release and rejecting the Israeli repressive campaign against the Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Addressing the rally, Qaddura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission, said the demonstration is an expression of rejection of the brutality and fascism that manifest in their worst forms in the policies, procedures, and statements of the Israeli occupation leaders, who seek revenge against all of us through the prisoner Walid Daqqa and the other sick prisoners. Fares added that the demonstration also serves as a show of support for the determined struggle led by administrative detainees, who are held in Israeli jails without charges or trial, against the racist policy of administrative detention. Sanaa Daqqa, the wife of prisoner Daqqa, expressed her appreciation for the participants in the demonstration. She emphasized that the prisoners are in dire need of supportive actions, and called for expanding the scope of supportive activities for the prisoners, particularly those who are ill, in order to save their lives. Daqqa is a Palestinian writer and activist who has been imprisoned by Israel since 1986 for his resistance of the Israeli occupation. In December 2022, he was diagnosed with advanced bone marrow cancer and was declared in urgent need of a transplant, but has not yet had a transplant. On May 22, Daqqa was transferred to the intensive care unit at the Assaf Harofeh hospital south of Tel Aviv due to further health complications. But three days later, Israeli authorities transferred him back to the Ramleh prison’s clinic in Israel, which is notorious for its difficult conditions, despite calls by rights groups to keep him hospitalised for constant monitoring and treatment if he is not released. His imprisonment also violates the 1993 Oslo Accords, which had a clause for the release of all Palestinian prisoners detained prior to the signing of the agreement.

Source: En – Palestine news & Information Agency – WAFA