Solidarity with UK hunger strikers
Update:
Four prisoners in the UK who have been on hunger strike since last year have ended their protest. The strike lasted 73 days.
Prisoners for Palestine, which represents the group, said that they had “begun re-feeding in accordance with health guidelines”.
A motion of solidarity with the strikers was passed by Cork City Council on Monday 12 January, and was reported by the Cork Independent this week.
The move to end the hunger strike came as Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest non-governmental military contractor, were unsuccessful in gaining a contract with the UK Ministry of Defence, which would have seen them training approximately 60,000 British troops a year.
The strikers said that ties being cut with Elbit was one of their key demands.
In a statement, Prisoners for Palestine said that the hunger strike “exposed to the world Britain has political prisoners in service of a foreign genocidal regime and has seen hundreds of people commit to take direct action in the prisoners’ footsteps”.
Elbit Systems reportedly lost out to a consortium of defence contractors including Raytheon UK. The company has come under negative scrutiny recently and is currently barred from bidding for any contracts with the NATO military alliance, of which the UK is a member.
An arrest warrant was issued by Belgian prosecutors in December 2025 for Eliau Eluasvili, an Italian military contractor operating on Elbit Systems’ behalf, for “active corruption and participation in a criminal organisation”.
Earlier:
Cork City Council has voted to express its solidarity with eight UK-based pro-Palestinian activists currently interned on remand.
At a meeting of the council on Monday 12 January, a motion put forward by Socialist Party – People Before Profit Cllr Brian McCarthy, noted that "the way they have been treated is abhorrent", and condemned this "inhumane treatment".
Four of the group, Heba Muraisi, Kamran Ahmad, Lewie Chiaramello, and Umar Khalid are currently on hunger strike for 74, 60, 53, and five days respectively. Chiaramello has been fasting on alternating days due to type-1 diabetes. Khalid previously refused food for 12 days between 4-16 December and restarted on 10 January.
Teuta Hoxha, Amy Gardiner Gibson, Qesser Zurah, and Jon Cink all ended their strikes after 60, 49, 48, and 43 days respectively, after requiring medical attention.
The hunger strike is the largest in the UK since the 1981 strike in HM Prison Maze in Co. Down, where ten republican prisoners, led by Bobby Sands, died.
According to Al Jazeera, Muraisi and Ahmad are described by doctors as having reached a critical phase in which death and irreversible health damage are increasingly likely.
Muraisi is reportedly experiencing constant pain, muscle spasms, and vision problems. Ahmad has reportedly lost 20kg since entering prison, is partially deaf in one ear, and has slurred speech.
“An awful lot of suffering involved.”
Dr Ciarán Dawson, a professor of Irish in UCC, who took part in the blanket protests in HM Prison Maze during the 1970s, gave an account of what happens to the body during a hunger strike.
Speaking to 96FM’s ‘The Opinion Line’, he said hunger strikes “destroy your body”.
“Your body is a clever thing. It identifies the least important organs, and it begins to consume itself. It starts with the least critical, like the muscles, but it eventually must move on to critical organs like the heart, the lives, and the brain.
“Once they enter a coma, you know they only have 24-48 hours left.
“It’s extremely painful. There’s an awful lot of suffering involved, both psychological and physical,” he said.
The charges
The group are currently being held on remand, meaning they are being denied bail until such time as they can be brought forward for trial.
The usual maximum period in which someone can be held on remand is six months. However, the Crown Prosecution Service maintain that because the charges are terror-related, the period can be extended.
However, the charges brought against the group members are not terror offences, but are rather “terrorism-linked”, and consist of standard criminal charges.
Some of the prisoners say that they will be waiting in prison for up to two years until they are given a trial.
The activists are alleged to have taken part in two alleged incidents.
The first is alleged to have taken place in Filton, Bristol, on 6 August 2024, and is alleged to have targeted Elbit Systems UK, the British arm of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems.
The company is Israel’s largest arms manufacturer and hold multiple contracts with the UK Ministry of Defence, worth tens of millions of pounds.
The second allegedly targeted RAF Brize Norton on 20 June 2025, a British air force base in Oxfordshire. It is alleged that several planes were damaged during the incident.
Palestine Action, the group to which the prisoners belong, was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK Government on 5 July 2025 under the Terrorism Act 2000. Since then, over 2,200 people have been arrested for terrorism offences, an almost 700% increase compared to 2024.
Palestine on the agenda
The ongoing genocide in Palestine featured heavily at this week’s meeting, with four motions being tabled discussing different aspects.
Also passed was a motion opposing the exclusion of services from the Occupied Territories bill. The council will write to An Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Helen McEntee calling on them to include the ban.
The council also voted through motions supporting aid organisations such as Doctors with Borders, Oxfam, and Action Against Hunger among others who have been banned from entering Gaza, as well as a motion “commending the work of Irish Charities and Palestine Solidarity Organisations in raising funds for mobile maternity units intended for use in Gaza”.
This article was produced with the support of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme funded by Coimisiún na Meán.