Just as the Hunger Strike led by Palestinian political prisoners ended last week, African refugees in Israel's desert detention centers began their own.
On Friday afternoon, nearly a thousand asylum seekers and refugees left Israel's so-called "open prison" in the Negev Desert.
Following months, and in some cases years, of imprisonment under Israel's newly amended anti-infiltration law the refugees decided to protest the prison conditions and the very fact that while seeking asylum they were imprisoned indefinitely.
After leaving the jail, the refugees headed to the border with Egypt, which they were violently stopped from reaching by the Israeli army.
They then decided to camp out in a nearby grove, urging the UN to intervene and allow them passage out of Israel.
But on Sunday night, massive forces of Israeli special police units removed them and transferred them back jail, where they went on hunger strike. Special thanks to journalists David Sheen, Simone Wilson, and Oren Ziv of ActiveStills.org
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