On May 13, as some 2000 Palestinian prisoners were in their 27th day of hunger-striking, Palestinian and solidarity activists blocked the entrance to one of the largest Israeli colonies in the West Bank.
Around 50 activists arrived at the entrance of the illegal Jewish-only settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and were successful in blocking traffic for at least 20 minutes. Israeli forces arrived quickly and detained two Palestinian men from the crowd, taking them to the nearby police station. As the activists left the area, they climbed to a nearby hill overlooking the same street and raised Palestinian flags. Israeli soldiers climbed the hill and forced them to descend. The activists then climbed an adjacent hill, prompting the same reaction from Israeli soldiers. The action was successful in its goal of civil disturbance.
The following day, the mass hunger strike of Palestinians in Israeli prisons reached a deal and the strike was finished. Many human rights groups have since criticized Israel for not maintaining parts of the agreement.
The importance of perseverance and creativity in the popular struggle cannot be stressed enough. As Palestinians battle normalization and apathy from several years of repetitive resistance and little gains, new ideas and forms of struggle are needed to keep the passion and dedication alive.
Zaytouni 
Faris Badie
/ June 26, 2012What makes it difficult now to do similar actions for the other hunger strikers?
zaytouni
/ June 28, 2012In Ramallah where I’m based, there are daily marches through the city and weekly demonstrations at Ofer prison. The difficulty is that the group of youth doing this are only about 30 individuals.
During the mass hunger strikes, hundreds and thousands of people were involved.
Now, as we march through Ramallah, many people look at us in confusion because they are not even aware that there are hunger strikers left.
So we are still doing something, but it is difficult to do an act like the one above without a big number of people, and with them supporting journalists and lawyers.