"For I was in prison and you visited me not'"

(Image by James Wall)   Details   DMCA

Reprinted from wallwritings.me

The full text of Matthew 25:42-43, condemns the sins of those who neither see, hear, nor care about those who suffer.

. . . For I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. (KJV)

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Do not think for a single moment that Jesus was referring solely to a "brief, but helpful visit" to a prisoner's cell.

"Visit" in this context means attention must be paid and action must be taken.

With absolute power in its hands, and only scattered opposition from outside, Israel is especially hard on Gaza families.

The picture above of children from those families, is by Joe Catron. It appeared in The Electronic Intifada, over a anger-inducing report by Catron, with the headline, "Children of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are barred from family visits".

Catron's report opens with quotes from one of the children:

"I dream of my father," eight-year-old Hamze Helles said in his family's house in Gaza City's al-Shajaiyeh neighborhood. "I miss him a lot, and am very eager to visit him. For five years, I have never seen him.

Hamze is one of two young sons of Majed Khalil Helles, a fighter in Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades who was captured by Israeli forces on 8 August 2008 and sentenced by an Israeli military court to five years' detention in Nafha prison.

Fourteen months before its military detained Helles, Israel imposed a comprehensive ban on family visits to Palestinian political prisoners from the Gaza Strip. Addameer, the prisoner advocacy organization, called the measure "part of [Israel's] policy of treating the Gaza Strip as an enemy entity following the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit one year prior.

The ban met wide criticism as an illegal act of collective punishment, Addameer said. "Israel's policy has been condemned, among others, by Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict in its report on the 2008--2009 Israeli offensive."

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On Saturday, May 20, Marjorie Cohn, wrote in Truthout, that the prisoner hunger strike, which began on Palestinian Prisoners' Day, April 17, will enter its 36th day on Monday. The strikers consume only salt water.

The 1500 who began the strike are "about a quarter of all Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel".

The demands of the strikers include:

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