Over the last month, as Christmas drew near, a group of six young people aged between 20 and 30 began to write their wills.

Members of the ‘Prisoners for Palestine’ group have now been on hunger strike in British jails for between 30 and 50 days. Almost all have been hospitalised. Some are due to be incarcerated until 2027, absent any criminal conviction. Ignored by their government and, according to their legal representatives, abused by their gaolers, they are preparing to die.

The prisoners are being held on remand — some for over a year despite a pre-trial custody limit of six months — for alleged offences relating to Palestine Action before the direct action group was proscribed under terrorism legislation. They have allegedly been denied medical attention and abandoned on their cell floors. “A lot of the time it feels like you’re being suffocated,” said Teuta Hoxha of her condition. Christmas Eve will mark the 46th day of Hoxha's hunger strike, the point at which the first Irish republican died after refusing food in 1981.

Read More:

The group are acting in recognition of, and in resistance to, the conditions that Palestinian detainees endure every day. It has been reported that more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli custody since October 2023. Others say they have been stripped, beaten, raped, and subjected to a policy of deliberate medical neglect. In November, the Israeli Knesset passed the second reading of a bill on the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners.

The wicked treatment of the ‘Prisoners for

© Herald Scotland