Reports: Israel, Palestinian prisoners on verge of deal to end hunger strike

A member of the Fatah Central Committee revealed Sunday that Israel was on the verge of signing an agreement with the Palestinian Prisoner's Association to end a months-long hunger strike.

Azam al-Ahmad indicated in an interview with Palestinian media outlet Ma’an that he arrived in Cairo under orders from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in order to reach an agreement over the issue of the prisoners. Included in the reported deal was the demand to cancel the policy of solitary confinement as well as granting visiting permits to the families of imprisoned Palestinians from Gaza.

Sources in the Palestinian Prisoner Association told Haaretz that the agreement formed by the Israel Prison Services will be presented to the group on Monday.

The sources also stated that the agreement will include three main clauses relating to administrative detention, solitary confinement and granting visiting permits to families from Gaza. more

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On 16 June, 35 Palestinian workers at Salit Quarries in Mishor Adumim (in area C, east of Jerusalem, in the Occupied West Bank) began a strike. The workers, organized with the independent union WAC-Ma'an, are demanding an end to exploitation and humiliation, and insist on signing a first collective agreement. Salit Quarries’ main customer is Readymix Industries (Israel). The total reliance of Salit Quarry on Readymix as their biggest and by far the most important customer puts responsibility on Readymix to make sure that their clients abides by labour laws and safeguards elementary rights for the workers of Salit. We call upon Readymix to urge the Salit management to terminate this unnecessary strike by signing the collective agreement with the workers and WAC-Ma’an. Click this protest link to send your message. The text of the message is as follows: I write to you to express my grave concern about the failure of Salit management to sign a collective agreement with the workers of

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