Restore occupied territories to Palestinians

Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prisons launched a hunger strike
demanding better conditions, more contacts with relatives, and to end Israel’s practice of detentions without trial. Thousands staged solidarity march in West Bank and Gaza. The hunger strike was led by Marwan Barghouti, who was arrested during Palestinian uprising in 2002 and convicted on multiple counts of murder for directing suicide bombings against Israelis. He was sentenced to five life terms.
Barghouti, a prominent figure in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement and most popular choice to succeed Abbas, called the hunger strike a new step in the Palestinians long-walk to freedom. Barghouti has alleged that Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israel are suffering torture, inhumane treatment and medical negligence. He said the hunger strike has been organized as a last resort after exhausting all option. “Israeli prisons have become the cradle of a lasting movement for Palestinian self-determination. This new hunger strike will demonstrate once more that the prisoners’ movement is the compass that guides our struggle, the struggle for Freedom and Dignity, the name we have chosen for this new step in our long walk to freedom,” Barghouti wrote in op-ed piece in New York Times.
Barghouti has been transferred to another prison and was placed in solitary confinement.
Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan called the strikers terrorists and said the Israeli government will not negotiate with them. He said the strike is politically motivated and that the prisoners have no legitimate complaints. The hunger strike will sharpen global focus on Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which in recent years was overshadowed by turmoil in other countries in the region. The strike has been staged as the conflict reaches the half-century mark in June, which is likely to generate renewed interest in the long-running conflict. Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim both areas, along with the Gaza Strip, for a future independent state.
In a sheer disregard of the international community, Israel has built more than 130 settlements throughout the West Bank and more than half a dozen Jewish housing developments around east Jerusalem in last fifty years. The Israeli move is meant to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Fifty years after Israel captured east Jerusalem, Israel and the Palestinians remain as divided as ever over the future of the sensitive area, home to major shrines of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under American pressure to curb some settlement construction in the West Bank, says east Jerusalem will not be included in any understanding with the US.
Israel continues to build settlers homes on occupied land despite all the screaming and all the demonstrations and all the threats. Almost all Israeli apartment buildings have been built on Palestinians land. The land that used to belong to Palestinians’ forefathers suddenly became a settlement specifically for Jewish people. And it is the most painful sight for Palestinians but they feel helpless. Something must be done to restore the occupied territory where it belongs to.