Palestinian prisoners minister Issa Qaraqaa on Tuesday warned there would be a major backlash if any of the detainees on a mass hunger inside Israeli jails were to die. “We will not accept our prisoners returning in coffins from the occupation’s prisons,” Qaraqaa told a 3,000-strong crowd demonstrating in solidarity with the prisoners in the West Bank city of Nablus. “If anything happens to any prisoner, the explosion will not stay inside prison walls but will extend to the outside,” he said. Around a third of the 4,700 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails are currently on open-ended hunger strike, according to the Israel Prisons Service, which puts the number at 1,450. Most have been refusing food for around two weeks, but eight of them are at an advanced stage of their hunger strike and two — Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla — have gone 63 days without eating.
