RAMALLAH, West Bank — About 140 Hamas members incarcerated in Israel have suspended the hunger strike they were staging to protest the Israel Prison Service's installation of potentially cancer-causing devices to jam calls from cellphones that have been smuggled in to prisoners.
The situation escalated Sept. 10, when 23 Hamas inmates in Israel’s Ramon Prison staged an open-ended hunger strike. Their numbers later increased to 140 inmates in the Ramon, Nafha, Eshel, al-Naqab, Ofer, Megiddo and Gilboa prisons, including six members of Hamas’ senior leadership committee for prisoners.
On Sept. 26, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs released a statement saying, "An agreement between the movement’s incarcerated leadership and intelligence of the Israeli prisons was reached” the night of Sept. 25, and that the Israel Prison Service "was committed to meeting a number of the demands which the protesting inmates made.”
The commission said the agreement requires the Israel Prison Service to stop using the jammers. The devices are being studied internationally for possible links to cancer and other health problems. The signal jammers also interfere with radio and TV frequencies. The commission said the prison service agreed to install landline phones and make them available five days a week.
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