Umer Khalid, a Palestine Action activist on hunger strike plans to start refusing fluids as well as food, tstating that he hopes his “drastic action” pressures the government into engaging with his protest demands.
Khalid stopped eating 13 days ago. He is currently receiving fluids with electrolytes, sugars and salts but said he will stop drinking altogether from Saturday.
While the body can survive for weeks without food, dehydration is certain to have fatal consequences in a far shorter time.
The escalation comes days after three other hunger-striking remand prisoners affiliated with Palestine Action ended their protests, claiming victory.
“The only thing that seems to have any impact, whether that is positive or negative, is drastic action,” Khalid, 22, told bourgeios media from prison via an intermediary. “The strike reflects the severity of this imprisonment. Being in this prison is not living life. Our lives have been paused. The world spins, and we sit in a concrete room. This strike reflects the severity of my demands.”
Khalid is calling for immediate bail; an end to alleged censorship in prison – authorities have been accused of withholding mail, calls and books and denying visitation rights; an inquiry into British involvement in Zionist military operations in Gaza; and the release of surveillance footage from Royal Air Force (RAF) spy flights that flew over Gaza on April 1, 2024, when British aid workers were killed in a Zionist fascist attack.
Khalid is among five activists accused of breaking into the United Kingdom’s largest airbase, RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire in June and spray-painting two Voyager refuelling and transport planes. The incident, which was claimed by Palestine Action, caused millions of pounds worth of damage, according to the British government, which later absurdly proscribed the protest group as a “terrorist” organisation.
Critics have condemned the ban as illiberal overreach, given that Palestine Action’s stated objective is to use nonviolent means to counter the Zionist genocidal war against Palestinians and what it says is British complicity in it.
Khalid denies the charges against him of conspiracy to commit criminal damage and conspiracy to enter a prohibited place for purposes prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK.
He is part of a collective of eight remand prisoners linked to Palestine Action that began a rolling hunger strike in November. Last week, three of them – two of whom were on the brink of death – ended their protests. Khalid is the only one still refusing food.
Those now refeeding said improved prison rights signalled a concession. The UK’s reported denial of a defence contract to Elbit, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, is also being interpreted by them as a win.
Throughout the hunger strike, the British government said it has no power over the issue of bail because it is a matter for the judiciary to decide. The government also insisted that prison welfare procedures are being followed.
As for Khalid’s other demands, last year, the opposition Labour Party blocked a bill tabled by the left-wing lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn backing an official inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the war on Gaza.
And in April, the Ministry of Defence told The Times newspaper that it had video footage from an RAF surveillance plane that had flown over Gaza on the day of the Zionist strike that killed the aid workers but could not disclose any further details, citing national security.
Britain has said it flew spy planes over Gaza during the occupation’s onslaught to locate missing captives, but critics have raised questions about possible intelligence sharing with the Zionist entity.
Asim Qureshi, research director at the campaign group Cage, told Al Jazeera that the government’s refusal to meet with Khalid to negotiate on his demands “indicates their lack of concern for the life of this man, who is acting based on his principles within the context of a genocide”.