Student Qesser Zuhrah has ended her hunger strike for Palestine after 49 days without food as Palestine Action launch a legal battle with Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy
Qesser Zuhrah, a 20 year old student who was on hunger strike for Palestine, has ended her protest after 49 days without food.
A legal letter from a law firm representing the hunger strikers confirmed that Zuhrah had ended her action. Two others had previously ended their actions as they await trial.
Zuhrah was one of the first to start the hunger strike on November 2 while being held at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey. Zuhrah is being held on remand awaiting trial for direct action protests. Despite not being convicted of any offences, some face significant delays in the justice system.
According to Middle East Eye, Qesser Zuhrah alerted staff at HMP Bronzefield to severe chest pains, abdominal pain, and breathlessness on December 16.
“Can you ring an ambulance? I’m scared,” Zuhrah reportedly told prison staff.
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Zurhah was rushed to hospital after 46 days without food. She wrote in a note that the guards had asked why she was refusing food. “Perhaps they were shamefully reflecting on what the chain on my right arm and the IV drip on my left meant,” she penned.
“All we want is to be able to go home to safety, to freedom and to dignity. Home for us and home for the Palestinian people,” the note, obtained by The Observer, concluded.
Before the end of her protest, Zuhrah’s friend Ella Moulsdale, 22, confirmed that she was refusing all food, adding that “any day after day 35 is considered final and severe stage of starvation, when your body essentially starts to eat itself.”
“It eats critical organs and tissues including the heart, which is increasingly worrying seeing how high her heart rate was yesterday. Her body is clearly working overtime and it doesn’t have enough fuel to keep her alive,” Moulsdale told Channel 4 News. “Any day after day 40 you can experience sudden death so there would be no warnings,” she continued.
Since the commencement of the hunger strike on November 2, a total of seven prisoners have been hospitalised, two of which were held at HMP Bronzefield.
A HMP Bronzefield spokesperson said: “We cannot provide information about specific individuals however, we can confirm that all prisoners have full access to healthcare, including attendance at external medical facilities if needed.
“Any prisoner refusing food receives regular medical assessment and support from clinicians, as well as being offered mental health support. In addition, all prisoners are managed in line with the policies and procedures governing the entire UK prison estate. This includes specialist multi-agency processes, led by the Government, to assess individual risks and security status,” they concluded.
The Palestine Action-affiliated protesters are referred to as the Filton 24 and Brize Norton 4. Palestine Action allegedly broke into RAF Brize Norton on June 20, where they entered the Ministry of Defence (MoJ) site and sprayed red paint into the engine of an Airbus Voyager.
The Filton prisoners have been remanded for alleged connections with over £1million in damage caused to Elbit’s research centre for Israeli weapons in Filton, near Bristol.
