The file photo released by Palestinian media shows Israeli prison guards and Palestinian prisoners.

Tel Aviv, July 27 (RHC)-- Israeli prison guards have stormed the cells of Palestinian inmates on an open-ended hunger strike, who are suffering from inadequate health care amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) said on Monday that the guards at Ofer and Ramon prisons confiscated all electronic devices and personal belongings of the inmates.  The guards assaulted the detainees, smashed their belongings, and isolated one of them and transferred four others to different detention facilities, the report said.

In Ramon, prison guards gave brutal treatment to four prisoners on hunger strike. The four, who have been on hunger strike for 12 consecutive days, were transferred to solitary confinement in the prisons of Beersheba, Ashkelon and Ohli Kedar.  Palestinian inmates are subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression in Israeli prisons.

The Palestinian commission for prisoners says five Palestinian prisoners languishing in the Israeli Naqab prison are in need of urgent medical treatment.  The Palestinian inmates go on hunger strike in protest at the administrative detention, in which the Israeli regime keeps the detainees for up to six months without charges.

Administrative inmates in Israeli jails say hunger strike is one of their few options to make their voice heard.  Rights groups describe Israel’s use of administrative detention as a “bankrupt tactic” and have long called on Israel to end the policy.

According to the Palestine Detainees Studies Center, about 60 percent of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails suffer from chronic diseases, a number of whom died in detention or after being released due to the severity of their cases.