Belfast mobilizes for Palestinian hunger strikers as memories of 1981 return | Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Belfast, Northern Ireland — On New Year’s Eve, as fireworks lit up the Belfast sky, the city’s streets were abuzz – and not just in celebration.

Hundreds of people gathered in solidarity with activists from the group Palestine Action who are on hunger strike in prison. Their songs echoed the murals of the past that not only decorate the city, but bear witness to its troubled past.

Along Falls Road, Irish Republican murals sit alongside Palestinian ones. The International Wall, once a backdrop to global struggles, is now known as the Palestinian Wall. Poems by the late Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer, killed in an Israeli airstrike in December 2023, run throughout his journey. Images sent by Palestinian artists were painted by local hands.

More recently, new words have appeared on Belfast’s famous walls. “Blessed are those who thirst for righteousness. » Alongside familiar images of Irish republican prisoners like Bobby Sands, new names are now etched into the city’s political consciousness: the four pro-Palestinian activists currently on hunger strike in British prisons, their bodies growing weaker as the days pass.

“This is not a city that will accept any attempt to silence our voice or our right to protest or our right to stand up for human rights,” said Patricia McKeown, a labor activist who spoke at the protest.

“These young people are being detained unjustly and in ridiculous conditions – and they have made the ultimate decision to express their opinions… and specifically about what is happening to people in Palestine – why wouldn’t we support that? she asked.

Hunger strike reaches Belfast

The Belfast protest is part of a growing international campaign calling on the British government to intervene as the health of four inmates deteriorates behind prison walls. All are affiliated with Palestine Action and are being held in pre-trial detention awaiting trial, a process that activists say could keep them in prison for more than a year before their cases are heard. With legal avenues exhausted, supporters say the hunger strike has become a last resort.

Members of Palestine Action are being held for their alleged involvement in burglaries at the UK branch of Elbit Systems in Filton, near Bristol, where equipment was allegedly damaged, and at a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire, where two military aircraft were sprayed with red paint. The prisoners deny the charges against them, including burglary and violent disorder.

The prisoners are demanding release on bail, an end to what they describe as interference in their mail and reading, access to a fair trial and a lifting of the ban on Action Palestine. In July, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s British government banned Palestine Action under a controversial anti-terrorism law.

Heba Muraisi is on day 61 without food. Teuta Hoxha is on day 55. Kamran Ahmed on day 54. Lewie Chiaramello on day 41. Hoxha and Ahmed have already been hospitalized. Activists describe it as the biggest hunger strike in Britain since 1981, a strike they say is explicitly inspired by the Irish hunger strikes.

In 1981, the Irish Republican Army and other republican prisoners began a hunger strike in Northern Ireland, demanding the restoration of their political status. Ten men died, including their leader, Bobby Sands, who was elected to the British parliament during the strike. Margaret Thatcher took a tough public stance, but behind the scenes the government ultimately sought a way out as public opinion shifted.

One prisoner, Martin Hurson, 29, died on the 46th day. Others, including Raymond McCreesh, Francis Hughes, Michael Devine and Joe McDonnell, died between days 59 and 61. Sands died after 66 days on hunger strike.

Sue Pentel, a member of Jews for Palestine in Ireland, remembers this period well.

“I was here during the hunger strike,” she said. “I have gone on hunger strikes, marched, demonstrated, held meetings, protested, so I remember the callous brutality of the British government who left 10 people to starve to death. »

“The words of Bobby Sands, which are ‘Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.’ And we raised our families here, and they are the same people, this new generation that stands in solidarity with Palestine.”

“If this continues, some will die”

Standing under a mural of Bobby Sands, Pat Sheehan fears history is dangerously close to repeating itself. He went on a hunger strike for 55 days before ending it on October 3, 1981.

“I was on the longest hunger strike when it ended in 1981, so in theory I would have been the next person to die,” he said.

At this point, he said, his liver was failing. His sight was gone. He was constantly vomiting bile.

“Once you pass 40 days, you enter the danger zone,” Sheehan said. “Physically, the hunger strikers must be very weak now for those who have been on hunger strike for more than 50 days. »

“Mentally, if they prepare properly to go on a hunger strike, their psychological strength will increase as the hunger strike continues. »

“I think if this continues, some hunger strikers will inevitably die. »

Sheehan, who now represents West Belfast as a Sinn Fein MP, believes that hunger strikers linked to Palestine Action are political prisoners, adding that the Irish understand Palestine in a way that few Western countries do.

“Ireland is probably the only country in Western Europe where there is almost absolute support for the Palestinian cause,” he said. “Because we have a similar history of colonization, genocide and detention. »

“So when Irish people see on their television screens what is happening in Gaza, they feel immense empathy. »

Ireland’s position

This empathy is increasingly translated into political action. Ireland formally recognized the State of Palestine in 2024 and joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice alleging genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel denies.

The Irish government also took steps to restrict the sale of Israeli bonds, while Ireland boycotted the Eurovision song contest over Israel’s participation and called for its national soccer team to be suspended from international competition.

But many activists say the government’s actions have not gone far enough. They say the Occupied Territories Bill, which aims to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements, has been blocked since 2018, and express anger that US military planes carrying weapons to Israel are still allowed to pass through Ireland’s Shannon Airport.

Meanwhile, in the northern part of Ireland which is still part of Britain, the war in Gaza dominates domestic politics.

The Stormont Assembly was plunged into crisis after Democratic Unionist Party Education Minister Paul Givan visited Jerusalem on an Israeli government-funded trip, prompting a vote of no confidence amid strong criticism from Irish republican, nationalist, left-wing and non-aligned political groups.

Belfast City Council’s decision last month to fly a Palestinian flag also met with fervent opposition from unionist councilors before it was finally approved.

For some loyalist and unionist groups, support for Israel has become linked to loyalty to Britain, with Israeli flags also flying in traditionally loyalist areas of Belfast.

With a legacy of identity rooted in sectarian lines, the genocide in Gaza has sometimes been recast along old fault lines.

“Solidarity reaches Palestine”

Yet on the streets of Belfast, protesters insist their solidarity is not rooted in national identity, but in humanity.

Damien Quinn, 33, a member of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, said hunger strikes have always carried particular weight in Ireland.

“We are here today to support the hunger strikers in Britain. But we are also here for the Palestinian people, for those who are being massacred every day,” he said.

Palestine Action, he said, “made it clear that they tried to sign petitions, they tried to lobby, they tried everything.”

“So when I see the way they are treated in prison, for opposing the genocide, it breaks my heart.”

For Rita Aburahma, 25, a Palestinian who found a home in Belfast, the hunger strike has a painful familiarity.

“My people don’t have the luxury of speaking out, being in Palestine – solidarity matters,” she said.

“I think the hunger strikers are really brave – it has always been a form of resistance. It worries me and many others how long it has taken the government to pay attention to them or take action in any form.

“Nothing will save these people if the government does nothing about them. So it’s shocking in a way, but not so surprising because the same government watched the genocide unfold and escalate without doing anything.

“Any form of solidarity reaches the Palestinian people. »