Palestinians rally for prisoners as peace talks falter

Thousands of Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza rallied Thursday in solidarity with Israeli-held prisoners, as peace talks near collapse after the Jewish state refused to free long-serving inmates. To mark Prisoners Day, Palestinians took to the streets in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has his headquarters, after hundreds took part in early rallies in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip late Wednesday. In the southern West Bank city of Hebron, some 2,000 people marched carrying photos of prisoners and waving Palestinian flags, and another 1,000 protested in the northern city of Nablus. "We support our prisoners!" read banners. The prisoners row caused a new deadlock in US-brokered peace talks in late March, just a month ahead of their deadline, when Israel reneged on its commitment to release a fourth and final batch of Palestinian inmates. The Palestinians retaliated by seeking membership of several international treaties, breaking their commitment under the talks which US Secretary of State John Kerry launched in July. "Prisoners Day has extra importance this year," said the Palestinian Prisoners Club head, Abdel al-Anani. "The prisoners issue has become one of global significance, since it is the reason that peace talks have almost collapsed," he told AFP. Prisoners minister Issa Qaraqe said in an interview with Voice of Palestine Radio that the move to sign up to the international treaties, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, could pave the way to guaranteeing Palestinian prisoners' rights. Palestinian legal rights NGO Adalah listed "administrative detention without formal charge or trial, severe restrictions on family visits, collective punishments such as solitary confinement, (and) violent night-time raids on inmates" as alleged abuses carried out by Israel. Independent international commission urged - Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestine Liberation Organisation official in a statement urged "the international community to expose Israel’s criminal treatment of Palestinian prisoners, to form an independent international commission to investigate violations committed by the Israel Prison Service". A one-day hunger strike was being observed by inmates to mark the annual show of solidarity with the nearly 5,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Qaraqe said. Around 30 have been held behind bars since before the 1993 Oslo autonomy accords with Israel, Adalah said. Israel has so far released 78 of the 104 prisoners it pledged to free during nine months of peace talks, most of them imprisoned since before the Oslo accords But it refused to free the final batch, using it as a bargaining chip to convince the Palestinians to extend negotiations until the end of the year. The Palestinians demand their release before any discussion of an extension. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat on Thursday repeated calls for Israel to free the last group of inmates. But Islamist group Hamas, wich governs Gaza, opposes all negotiations with Israel and regards the Palestinian Authority's meetings with its sworn enemy as "illegitimate". "We are sending a message to the Palestinian negotiators: forget this farce, the futile negotiations, and come back to the resistance which freed prisoners," a Hamas member said in a speech at Wednesday's rally. The Palestinian leadership has also launched an international campaign on behalf of some of the prisoners, including Marwan Barghuti, one of the leaders of the second intifada, held since 2002, and secretary general of the far-left Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmad Saadat. According to Israeli rights group B'Tselem, Israel is holding 4,881 Palestinian prisoners, including 175 in administrative detention where they can be detained without charge for renewable six-month periods. Of the total number, 183 are minors, B'Tselem says.