The Palestine Action Prisoner Hunger Strikes Come to an End: What Now?

By Lilac Carr, BA Politics and International Relations

Umer Khalid, Heba Muraisi, Kamran Ahmed, and Lewie Chiaramello, the last remaining hunger strikers currently being held in custody in relation to action carried out under the banner of Palestine Action, ended their hunger strike on 14 January.

According to the strikers, this comes in response to several of their key demands being met. This includes the abrupt cancellation of a £2 billion UK government deal with Israeli arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems, which has been a key subject of repeated Palestine Action activity.

There have been several developments regarding the hunger strikers’ treatment and conditions, including access to previously withheld mail; offers for meetings with prison healthcare and extremism unit officials to discuss their mistreatment; and Heba Muraisi’s transfer back to HMP Bronzefield – nearer her family - where she was originally held.

As well as this, the last five years of Elbit Systems’ export licenses have been disclosed to an independent researcher. The refusal by Elbit Systems to disclose this information has been, according to Prisoners for Palestine, an obstacle to achieving a fair trial for the Palestine-Action-related cases.

The end to the strike also coincides with severely deteriorating health, and increasing risk of death, due to the effects of the hunger strike on the striker’s bodies.

As a result of the long-term strike, Ahmed developed bradycardia and experienced heart muscle shrinkage and a heart rate of as low as 40bpm. Muraisi experienced uncontrollable muscle spasms and severe difficulty breathing. Both have been hospitalised throughout the strike, with Ahmed being hospitalised six times throughout his strike.

Umer Khalid, the last remaining hunger striker, ended his hunger and thirst strike after being hospitalised for organ failure, stating ‘I was given a choice between treatment and likely death within the next 24 hours.’

The hunger strikes began on 2nd November 2025, with seven hunger strikers (later joined by Umer Khalid, with Lewie Chiaramello’s hunger striking occurring over alternate days due to him being a type 1 diabetic). The strikes began in response to Palestine Action’s proscription, poor conditions in prison, being held in custody without bail for over a year – well past the usual 6-month limit laid out in law – and concerns over obstructions to the strikers’ right to a fair trial.

Fair Trial, an independent criminal justice system watchdog, reports that more than a quarter of the remand population in the UK (that is, people held in custody without bail) have been held for longer than 6 months, primarily for non-violent offences, with 13% having been held for longer than a year.

Black defendants are disproportionately impacted by these remands, with Asian defendants and other racial minorities also being disproportionately remanded. This is despite black defendants being more likely to be acquitted and/or not sent to prison following trial after remand than white defendants held in remand.

As Fair Trial writes, ‘Being held in pre-trial detention can affect how a judge or jury perceives someone and this can have an impact on the outcome of a case’ and ‘can lead some people to plead guilty even if they are innocent just to get out of detention.’ As well as this, Fair Trial also notes that pre-trial detention beyond cases where such restrictions are strictly necessary contribute to overcrowding and poor prison conditions.

According to the Howard League, the world’s oldest penal reform charity, UK prisons have been facing a severe overcrowding crisis, with more than half of prisons in England and Wales holding more prisoners than their intended capacity by February last year. This has created conditions which are ‘simply unfit for human habitation’, as well as ‘worrying rises in self-harm and violence.’

Howard League claim this has resulted from a greater handing out of prison sentences and longer prison sentences for the same crimes, despite decreases in recorded crime rates; increases in scale and duration of remand custody; and increasing trial backlogs.

Trial backlogs have played a factor in the long periods of custody in remand of the Palestine Action-related activists including those on strike. Those  prisoners involved in the hunger strikes have been on remand since November 2024 and July 2025 respectively for alleged offences including damages and break-ins at Elbit System’s Filton, Bristol site – since closed down - and RAF Brize Norton. Some trials are expected to take place in June, while those for the RAF Brize Norton case are not expected to take place until January 2027, according to Prisoners for Palestine.

Both of these actions occurred prior to the proscription of Palestine Action, with the group being proscribed by then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, following the RAF Brize Action break-in.

Some lawyers have raised concerns that mass arrests of protestors resulting from the government’s proscription of Palestine Action will make these problems worse and risk overloading an already struggling criminal justice system, according to the Telegraph.

While the hunger strikes have now collectively come to an end, several demands of the strike have not yet been met. These include the de-proscription of Palestine Action; the release of the prisoners on bail while awaiting trial; and the permanent shutdown of ‘all Elbit systems’ sites and its subsidiaries in the UK’.

Prisoners for Palestine also demands the disclosure of remaining undisclosed information seen as necessary and relevant evidence to ensure a fair trial, including damage figures from the RAF Brize Norton Action, and ‘surveillance footage from RAF spy flights the night of the killing of British aid workers’.

Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori has taken the government to court challenging the proscription of the group, with a judgement still awaiting. Concerns have been raised by some groups over the fairness of the trial, including Defend Our Juries following the last-minute replacement of the original presiding judge without explanation.