Derry white line picket as Prisoners for Palestine hunger strike enters high risk phase
A white line picket will be held in Derry city centre on Sunday in solidarity with several Palestine solidarity campaigners who are entering a high risk phase of a weeks long hunger strike in England.
RISE Palestine will mount the picket in Shipquay Street at 2pm. Supporters are asked to assembly at 1.45pm in the Diamond.
A spokesperson said: “Hunger strikers are dying for Gaza and no one’s allowed to talk about it.”
The prisoners have been refusing food while on remand for a variety of alleged offences over the past several weeks.
Qesser Zuhrah, Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Teuta Hoxha and Kamran Ahmed are on full hunger strike. Lewie Chiaramello is on a partial strike.
Jon Cink and Umer Khalid are believed to have ended their strike after 41 days and 13 days respectively this week.
According to the campaign group Prisoners for Palestine, the strike is now its 48th day, with Qesser Zuhrah having refused food for all of that time.
It is the largest such protest in Ireland or Britain since the IRA/INLA hunger strike of 1981 when 10 prisoners died.
The ten IRA and INLA prisoners – including Derry republicans Patsy O’Hara, Mickey Devine, Kevin Lynch, Francis Hughes and Thomas McElwee – died after being on strike for periods of between 46 days and 73 days.
Prisoners for Palestine have warned the hunger strikers in England are at imminent risk of death.
On December 17, 2025, a letter signed by over 800 doctors urged the British Home Secretary David Lammy to intervene.
“They are at very high risk of serious complications, including organ failure, irreversible neurological damage, cardiac arrythmias, and death,” the letter stated.
Rahma Hoxha, the sister of Teuta Hoxha currently held at HMP Peterborough, said on Thursday: “I don’t think people realise how serious this is, as on day 35 you risk brain damage, organ failure and heart attack. Today, she’s on day 40. I don’t want to lose my sister, I don’t want to imagine my life without her.”
Qesser Zuhrah’s next of kin said: “Qesser has been on hunger strike now for 47 days. This means she is 12 days into the final stage of starvation and 7 days into the period where death can occur at any time.”