Palestinians Call For Strike After Prisoner Dies of Cancer

Palestinian prisoners sit in a prison cell in Ashkelon. (Reuters file photo)
Palestinian prisoners sit in a prison cell in Ashkelon. (Reuters file photo)
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Palestinians Call For Strike After Prisoner Dies of Cancer

Palestinian prisoners sit in a prison cell in Ashkelon. (Reuters file photo)
Palestinian prisoners sit in a prison cell in Ashkelon. (Reuters file photo)

Palestinian factions called for a general strike in the occupied West Bank and urged Palestinians to confront Israeli troops on Tuesday after a Palestinian prisoner died of lung cancer.

Nasser Abu Hamid, 50, a former leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, was sentenced to seven life sentences in 2002 for involvement in the deaths of seven Israelis during the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising against Israel’s occupation in the early 2000s.

Palestinian officials had called for his release as his health deteriorated in recent months, according to The Associated Press.

Abu Hamid’s death came as one of the deadliest years in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in recent decades draws to a close, with the prospects of negotiating a two-state solution and ending Israel’s open-ended military rule over the Palestinians increasingly remote.

The Israel Prison Service confirmed Abu Hamid’s death. It said he was terminally ill and hospitalized a day earlier. The service added that “as in every case of this kind, the incident will be investigated.”

The Palestinian Prisoners Club, a group representing former and current prisoners, said that around 4,700 Palestinians are imprisoned by Israel for security offenses and illegal entry to Israel. It said Abu Hamid was diagnosed with cancer in August 2021.

Palestinian officials blamed Israel for Abu Hamid’s death. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh accused Israel of “deliberate medical negligence.”

The militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, called for a “a real escalation in the occupation prisons” in response to his death.

The Prison Service said Abu Hamid had received “close and regular treatment by Prison Service medical staff and outside personnel” since his diagnosis.

Fatah called for strikes in cities across the West Bank “in response to the crimes committed against Palestinian prisoners.”

Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, said the Palestinian “movement also called for a day of rage at contact points with the Israeli army.”



Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)

Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party called on Wednesday for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of the month.

They issued a petition ahead of Netanyahu's meeting next week with US President Donald Trump, where discussions are expected to center on a potential 60-day Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

The petition was signed by 15 cabinet ministers and Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

There was no immediate response from the prime minister's office. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, long a confidant of Netanyahu, did not sign the petition. He has been in Washington since Monday for talks on Iran and Gaza.

"We ministers and members of Knesset call for applying Israeli sovereignty and law immediately on Judea and Samaria," they wrote, using the biblical names for the West Bank captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Their petition cited Israel's recent achievements against both Iran and Iran's allies and the opportunity afforded by the strategic partnership with the US and support of Trump.

It said the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel demonstrated that the concept of Jewish settlement blocs alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state poses an existential threat to Israel.

"The task must be completed, the existential threat removed from within, and another massacre in the heart of the country must be prevented," the petition stated.

Most countries regard Jewish settlements in the West Bank, many of which cut off Palestinian communities from one another, as a violation of international law.

With each advance of Israeli settlements and roads, the West Bank becomes more fractured, further undermining prospects for a contiguous land on which Palestinians could build a sovereign state long envisaged in Middle East peacemaking.

Israel's pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of Trump, who has proposed Palestinians leave Gaza, a suggestion widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond.