THOUSANDS of Palestinian prisoners were set to begin a one-day hunger strike today in protest against the repressive policies of the Israeli occupation authorities, according to a support group.

The Supreme Emergency Committee for the Palestinian Prisoner Movement said that the protesters were also demanding the immediate release of sick inmate Walid Daqqa.

The writer and activist has been imprisoned by Israeli occupation authorities since 1986 for his resistance to the regime. 

Last year, he was diagnosed with myelofibrosis, a rare form of bone marrow cancer that disrupts the body’s normal production of blood cells.

In February, Mr Daqqa suffered a stroke caused by a blood clot and was transferred to hospital due to his relapsing health condition. 

The prisoner support committee said that the protest also aimed to win the end of solitary confinement for three leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.   

The start of the hunger strike coincided with the first United Nations commemoration of the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians following the partition of what was then British-ruled Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states in 1948.

The Palestinians refer to the event as the Nakba, which means catastrophe.

Palestinian UN ambassador Riyad Mansour described the observance as “historic” and significant because the world body’s general assembly played a key role in the partition of Palestine.

Israeli UN ambassador Gilad Erdan condemned the commemoration as an “abominable event” and a “blatant attempt to distort history.”