An Israeli Bedouin serving a life prison sentence in Egypt on charges of being a spy has begun a hunger strike to draw attention to his plight, the Egyptian Ahram website reported.

Ouda Trabin was sentenced in 2000 on charges of espionage. Voice of Israel public radio aired on Wednesday a letter he sent to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Ambassador in Cairo.

Israel negotiated with Egypt last year for his release in exchange for 65 Egyptians in jail in Israel, but Trabin was not included in the final agreement, which won the release of American-Israeli Ilan Grapel. He has been arrested for allegedly spying on Egypt on Israel’s behalf but was not brought to trial.

Hundreds of Palestinian Authority security prisoners rioted while terrorists out of jail attacks Israelis with rocks and firebombs Tuesday following the death of a cancer-stricken terrorist serving a life sentence for helping to plan a suicide bombing.

The Palestinian Authority officially blamed Israel for the “brutal” death of Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, 64, who died after being transferred from his Negev prison cell to Be’er Sheva’s Soroka Medical Center late last month for medical care.

Six prison guards and three prisoners were injured during riots, and Arabs in Abu Hamdiyeh’s home city of Hevron went on a rampage, throwing rocks and hurling firebombs at police and soldiers.

Abu Hamdiyeh was sentenced to life in 2002 for organizing a Fatah suicide attack at the Kafit coffee shop in Jerusalem, where approximately 50 people were spared death or injury when the bomber’s explosive charge failed to detonate.

“The Palestinian presidency holds the government of Netanyahu responsible for the martyrdom of prisoner Abu Hamdiyeh today in the prisons of the Israeli occupation,” according to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina.

Just to make certain there is no doubt concerning the gravity of Israel’s supposed guilt, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) called it a “premeditated crime against humanity.”

Palestinian Authority Minister for Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqe charged Israel with causing his death, which he said “is a brutal crime…especially that the prison administration knew that he was suffering from cancer and they didn’t release him and medically neglected him.”

An Israeli prisoner spokeswoman said that Abu Hamdiyeh was diagnosed in February with esophagus cancer, which was not diagnosed as terminal until last week. She added that the Prisons Service “appealed to the release committee to secure his early release, a process which had been started but not yet concluded.”

The cancer-stricken terrorist recently complained to lawyers that he was only receiving pain killers and was not treated for his condition while in jail.

Hamas called for a new intifada against Israel, but the call was unnecessary considering the violent reaction to Abu Hamdiyeh’s death. The Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency noted that he was the 207th Palestinian Authority prisoner to die in jail, an implication that Israel is to be blamed for deaths of terrorists, even those who suffer from cancer.

Other jailed Palestinian Authority terrorists are risking their lives through hunger strikes, and one of them, Samer al-Issawi, is being cared for in an Israeli hospital, where he reportedly is in critical condition. He had been freed from jail in the swap of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit in return for 1,000 terrorists but was re-arrested for violating terms of the agreement.

If he dies, Israel also will be blamed for his starving himself to death.

Samer Issawi, who has been on a hunger strike for more than 210 days, was taken to an Israeli hospital on Wednesday from the Ofer Prison, near Jerusalem, while two other hunger strikers reached a deal with Israel and ended their hunger strikes.

Issawi was sentenced to eight months in prison and is eligible for release March 6. He was jailed for violating the terms of his release under the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap in 201. Issawi illegally entering the Judea and Samaria after having been held under administrative detention without charges.

Jaafar Izzedine and Tarek Qaadan on Wednesday agreed to halt their hunger strikes after Israel agreed to release them in May.

A Palestinian Authority prisoner on a long-term hunger strike in an Israeli jail will be released in March, but violent protests continued Thursday near the Ofer Prison, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Samer Issawi was sentenced to eight months in prison for violating the terms of his release under the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap, and he will be eligible for release March 6.

He has become a cause célèbre for Palestinian Authority Arabs, 1,000 of whom rioted on Thursday near Ofer prison where he is being held. They injured two journalists with rocks, and security forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets, wounding about 29 people.

Issawi has been on a hunger strike for more than 200 days and is reportedly to be near death, although Israeli officials are doing everything possible to keep him alive. His death would turn him into a “martyr” and would set off a wildly violent reaction.

Sderot Mayor David Buskila has announced that he will not eat again until the government increased the budget of the beleaguered town, well-known landing site of many of Hamas’s rockets launched on civilians from sites in Gaza.

Busika set up a protest tent in front of the Prime Minister’s residence on Wednesday, demonstrating on behalf of his town’s 20,000 residents.

Buskila accused the government of failing to provide more support for Sderot’s recovery, and said the government has come through with just 10 percent of the funding it promised to the municipality.

Sderot municipal employees went on strike on Sunday, rallying in front of the Prime Minister’s office, even before 80 rockets rained down on the region.

On Monday, US President Barack Obama said during a televised debate with Republican nominee Mitt Romney that his visit to Sderot in 2007 had moved him to fund the Iron Dome anti-missile battery system.

The Interior Ministry has said it provided funding to Sderot, and that it is up to officials there to put it to good use.

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Service) revealed on Tuesday that it recently uncovered and foiled a terrorist plot to kidnap Israeli citizens.

The group, identified as the “Holy Warriors Brigades,” was comprised of five Palestinians coordinating from Hebron and Gaza. The Shin Bet reasoned that the group sought to use the abducted Israelis as bargaining chips to obtain the release of Palestinian prisoners, including one of the plotters – Ibrahim Animat. Animat is serving a life sentence for raping and murdering an Israeli woman in 2010.

“The Holy Warriors Brigades” originated in Fatah’s military wing, al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, but splintered off in 2007. Since then, the group has been funded by Hamas. According to the Shin Bet, it is headed Assad Ibrahim abu Shariya, whose imprisoned brother, Omar, hatched the plan with fellow inmates that have since been released.

The Shin Bet stated that the group, which has been responsible for a number of terrorist attacks against Israelis in recent years, planned to abduct Israelis sometime in the coming weeks.

The revelation is particularly disturbing because Israel recently agreed to ease restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails so that they would end their hunger strike. An explicit term of the agreement required the prisoners to sign a pledge to forswear terrorist activity.

When IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz this week examined the readiness of military units at the Central Command and near the Gaza Strip, in preparation for the possibility of violent protests to mark Nakba Day tomorrow, Tuesday, he was acutely aware of the possibility that the success of his forces’ best laid plans depended on the physical well being of some 1600 Arab terrorists.

Over the past week there has been concern that this year’s ‘Nakba’ events would be more intense than usual, because of Palestinians prisoners who are on a hunger strike in Israeli jails. The Chief of Staff reportedly told GOC Central Command Brigadier General Nitzan Alon: “We are hoping for the better and getting ready for the worst.”

On Monday night, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners agreed to end their hunger strike after winning concessions from Israel to improve their conditions, both sides announced.

Some inmates had gone without food for as long as 77 days, with a few in a life-threatening state.

Earlier in the week, concern had been rising about the effect the death of one of the strikers might have on Tuesday’s protests.

Nakba Day (“day of the catastrophe” in Arabic) falls on May 15, the day of Israel’s declaration of independence. On this day Palestinians commemorate their displacement following Israel’s 1948-49 War of Liberation against invaders from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

Estimates within the IDF are that the demonstrations will concentrate in the areas of Bethany, Qalandiya, Ma’avar Rachel, the Erez Crossing and inside Arab towns, but there is little fear that the protests might spill over into violence against Israeli soldiers. Judging by the tepid response on the part of Palestinians to the “March to Jerusalem” last March, there isn’t much lust for large scope violence on the Arab side.

A senior Central Command officer told the Walla news service that “the prisoners’ strike will bring more civilians out into the streets, but the PA security apparatus won’t allow demonstrations and rallies to deteriorate into chaos.”

All of that could have changed dramatically if any of the hunger striking Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails were to die.

Indeed, Amin Shoman, head of a monitoring group of Palestinian political factions, said that if Israel did not confirm the Egyptian-brokered deal, prisoners were going to intensify their fast and break off further talks with prison authorities.

“The prisoners will stop taking vitamins and water and stop negotiations with the Israel Prisons Service if they get a negative answer,” he told AFP.

Ten prisoners were placed under medical supervision last week.

According to a Palestinian negotiator, Israel agreed to allow Palestinian prisoners to receive family visits. The visits from Gaza were halted in 2006 after Gaza-based terrorists had captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The negotiator said that Israel also agreed to curb its policy of placing prisoners in solitary confinement, to permit prisoner phone calls and to let prisoners engage in academic studies.

But it does not look as if Israel’s security apparatus is prepared to do away with administrative detentions, which the hunger striking prisoners were protesting..

While 308 Palestinian prisoners are being held in detention as security risks because of their active affiliation with terrorist groups, the vast majority of Palestinian security prisoners, 3,097 out of 4,424, are in Israeli jails after having been convicted on a range of violent crimes—from rock throwing to multiple murders—as active members of terror organizations in Gaza and Judea and Samaria.

The UN’s Ban Ki-Moon cares about Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails:

9 May 2012 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today stressed the importance of averting any further deterioration in the condition of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody who are on hunger strike, and urged everyone concerned to reach a solution to their plight without delay.

“The Secretary-General continues to follow with concern the ongoing hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody, in particular those held in what is known as administrative detention,” according to information provided by his spokesperson.

“He stresses the importance of averting any further deterioration in their condition,” the spokesperson added. “He reiterates that those detained must be charged and face trial with judicial guarantees, or released without delay.”

More than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners began an open-ended hunger strike two weeks ago, on 17 April – Palestinian Prisoners Day – to protest against unjust arrest procedures, arbitrary detention and bad prison conditions, according to the UN human rights office (OHCHR).

Here are some things that Moon doesn’t mention:

According to Ofir Gendleman, PM Netanyahu’s Arab media spokesperson, only six of the more than 1500 prisoners who are striking are being held in administrative detention. All of the rest are convicted terrorists (there are a total of about 4,500 Palestinians imprisoned for terror-related activity, and of these around 300 are currently in administrative detention, according to ‘rights groups’).

Arnold and Frimet Roth, whose 15-year old daughter Malki was murdered in 2001 by a bomb built by one of the striking terrorists (Abdullah Barghouti, who has said that he “feels bad that [he] killed only 66 Jews”), provide some more information:

The two who began hunger-striking in March are men called Bilal Diab and Tha’er Halahlah who are administrative detainees, held so far for nine months and 22 months respectively. Their petition came before the High Court of Justice on Monday and was heard and rejected. The court pointed to the ongoing ties of the petitioners to terrorist funding and terrorism and that they are a clear and immediate security risk to Israeli citizens. It added (which is also significant) that the Israel Prison Service is meeting or exceeding the standards required by international law regarding prisoner treatment already.

Diab and Halahlah are in fact leaders in Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The angry voices are demanding that we think of them as unjustly shunted off to prison for the equivalent of failing to pay for a television license. The media and the ranks of ‘activist’ NGOs are currently filled with such voices.

Of the other strikers, almost all were charged, tried and convicted for the most serious offenses you can think of. Hundreds are in prison for murder. Quite a number of them are unrepentant multiple murderers.

You will recall that over 1000 prisoners, including some multiple murderers, were released in the ‘exchange’ (I call it a ‘jailbreak’) for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Many of the ones that are left were not part of the deal because they were considered more dangerous or because their crimes were more vicious.

Among the leaders of the strike are these (according to Israeli government sources):

-Abbas a-Sayyid – Senior Hamas activist. He was sentenced to 35 life sentences for his role in the attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya on Passover eve in 2002 [30 dead, 140 injured].

-Muhanned Sharrim – Senior Hamas activist. He was sentenced to 29 life sentences for his involvement in the attack at the Park Hotel.

-Jamal al-Hur – Hamas activist who was sentenced to five life sentences for his involvement in terrorist attacks and murders. He was responsible for planning the attack at Café Apropo in Tel Aviv (1997) [3 dead, 48 injured].

-Wajdi Joda – Senior activist in the ‘Democratic Front’. He was involved in the suicide attack in Geha interchange (2003) [4 dead, 16 injured].

Just your average ‘political prisoners’, for whom the hearts of numerous ‘human rights’ activists are bleeding.

Finally, I want to discuss the ‘administrative detention’ provision under which 6 of the 1500 strikers are being held, since it is being compared to the Soviet Gulag and worse by the prisoners’ supporters. Administrative detention is used when an individual is deemed to be an immediate threat and where a public charge sheet would have to reveal information about sources or otherwise compromise security. NGO Monitor explains,

Most NGO statements omit the fact that administrative detention is a common procedure used by democratic and rights-respecting states around the world in security-related cases, including the US and the UK. Israel’s detention law meets and often exceeds the due process standards required by criminal procedure and human rights law [Esp. including the 4th Geneva Convention -- ed.]

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