Pro-Palestine activists end prison hunger strike

Seven Palestinian Action-affiliated prisoners have ended their hunger strike after ministers decided not to award a £2bn contract to Israeli arms ⚫ firm subsidiary Elbit Systems UK.

- Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent

Fears had been growing for the welfare of those taking part in the protest. Yesterday, Heba Muraisi, 31, one of the prisoners ending their strikes, would have been on day 73 of refusing food, the same number of days as reached by the Irish republican hunger striker Kieran Doherty, who survived the strike was telegraphed and largely symbolic. longest of the 10 men who died in a 1981 action.

The earliest death among the Irish republicans was after 46 days, raising fears about the risk to life of the prisoners in jail awaiting trial for offences relating to protests claimed by Palestine Action.Among their demands had been to shut Elbit Systems down, a slogan used by Palestine Action in its campaign against the company’s UK sites.

Late yesterday, Prisoners for Palestine said the decision not to grant the contract to Elbit Systems UK, which would have seen it train 60,000 British troops a year, fulfilled one of their key demands. It said the company had won more than 10 public contracts since 2012, and so the decision by the Ministry of Defence marked a shift in thinking among officials.