Palestine hunger striker ‘losing ability to speak’ after 57 days without food
One of the prisoners on hunger strike for Palestine is now struggling to follow a conversation, she said in a statement released through her support group.
Heba Muraisi is now in her 57th day without food, and is said to be in ‘critical danger’.
She is among a group of eight prisoners detained on remand for their alleged roles in ‘direct action’ protests for Palestine Action, who went on hunger strike from November.
Three of them are said to still be continuing, with Heba now the prisoner who has gone the longest.
In a phone call recorded on Day 53 of her strike, released by Prisoners for Palestine, she tells how a month and a half without food is taking a heavy physical toll.
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She feels ‘weaker as each day passes’ and said she has a ‘constant body ache’ as well as bruising on her arms, hands, and fingers from blood tests, dizziness, headaches and nausea.
‘Even though I’m immensely proud of my body’s resilience and capability, I can feel myself get weaker as each day passes,’ she said.
‘When I lay down at night now I can’t lay on my side because it hurts my face.’
In a recording punctuated by long pauses, she continued: ‘Sometimes I struggle to construct sentences, sometimes I struggle to maintain conversation.’
Four other prisoners have now ended their hunger strikes due to health concerns, while another, who has Type 1 Diabetes, is continuing but on alternate days.
Heba said: ‘Other than the physical effects of it, mentally I’m still doing well, still headstrong, willpower is still there, it hasn’t shifted in the slightest.’
She is now being held in HMP New Hall having been transferred from HMP Bronzefield, which campaigners say is unfair is it puts her too far away for her family in Brent to visit her.
Her arrest in November 2024 was over her alleged role in the raid on Elbit Systems in Bristol, an Israeli weapons manufacturer, which it is alleged caused over £1 million in damage.
A trial date is not set until June next year, meaning she will have spent close to two years in jail without conviction, one factor which the activists are protesting in their hunger strikes.
In an earlier statement released through Prisoners for Palestine, Muraisi said: ‘I want to make it abundantly clear that this is not about dying, because unlike the enemy I love life, and my love for life, for people, is the reason why I have been incarcerated for 349 days now.’
James Smith, an A&E doctor and epidemiologist with UCL, who has been supporting those on strike, told Metro that the prisoners on hunger strike are now in a critical and unpredictable period for their health.
They risk long-term damage to their health, even if they ultimately survived: ‘You can do damage to the kidneys, the liver, the pancreas, the heart, and of course, to the entirety of the musculature, and there’s no guarantee that all of those things are reversible’.
It is now possible for something ‘tragic’ to happen at any time, he said, based on how other patients with acute malnutrition have progressed, where there can be ‘very sudden and rapid changes that can be fatal’.
The other prisoners still said to be on hunger strike are Teuta Hoxha (Day 51), Kamran Ahmed (Day 50) and Lewie Chiaramello (who is fasting every other day for health reasons, currently on Day 36).
Amu Gib, Jon Cink, Umer Khalid and Qesser Zuhrah have ‘paused’ their participation.
The protest is thought to be the largest action of its kind since 1981, when 10 people died, including IRA prison leader Bobby Sands.
Last week, climate activist Greta Thunberg was arrested on suspicion of supporting a terrorist organisation after taking part in a pro-Palestine protest.
The campaigner, 22, was handcuffed by police in Fenchurch Street in central London at a protest in support of the hunger strikers.
What are the hunger strikers’ demands?
All the group are on remand, charged with offences relating to break-ins and criminal damage either at Elbit in August 2024 or another raid at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire in June this year.
The protesters’ demands include ‘end all censorship’ of communication and correspondence in jail, immediate bail, ‘right to a fair’ trial, de-proscribing Palestine Action as a banned terrorist organisation, and shutting Elbit down.
‘Procedures in place to ensure safety’
Lord Timpson, minister of state for prisons, probation and reducing reoffending, previously doubled down on the government’s refusal to meet the group.
He said: ‘While very concerning, hunger strikes are not a new issue for our prisons. Over the last five years, we’ve averaged over 200 a year and we have longstanding procedures in place to ensure prisoner safety.
‘Prison healthcare teams provide NHS care and continuously monitor the situation. HMPPS are clear that claims that hospital care is being refused are entirely misleading – they will always be taken when needed and a number of these prisoners have already been treated in hospital.
‘These prisoners are charged with serious offences including aggravated burglary and criminal damage.
‘Remand decisions are for independent judges, and lawyers can make representations to the court on behalf of their clients.
‘Ministers will not meet with them — we have a justice system that is based on the separation of powers, and the independent judiciary is the cornerstone of our system.
‘It would be entirely unconstitutional and inappropriate for ministers to intervene in ongoing legal cases.’
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