BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Fireworks lit up the Belfast sky and the city’s streets were buzzing with activity on New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t just a celebration.
Hundreds of people gathered in solidarity with activists from the Palestinian Action Group who are on hunger strike inside the prison. Their chants were echoed in the past murals that not only adorn the city, but testify to its troubled past.
Along Falls Road are Republic of Ireland murals and Palestinian murals. The International Wall, once the rolling canvas of global struggles, is now known as the Palestinian Wall. A full-length exhibition features poems by the late Palestinian writer Refaat Alalil, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in December 2023. Images sent by Palestinian artists are painted by local hands.
A new word recently appeared on Belfast’s famous wall. “Blessed are those who thirst for justice.” Pictured alongside the long-familiar picture of Irish republican prisoners like Bobby Sands is a new name now etched on the city’s political conscience. Four pro-Palestinian activists are currently on hunger strike in a British prison, and their bodies are growing weaker as the days go by.
Patricia McCune, a trade union activist who spoke at the protest, said: “This is a city that will never accept any attempt to silence our voices, our right to protest, our right to stand up for human rights.”
“These young people are being held in unjust and ridiculous conditions, and they have made the ultimate decision to express their views…especially about what is happening to the Palestinian people, so why don’t we support that?” she asked.
Hunger strikers arrive in Belfast
The protests in Belfast are part of a growing international campaign calling on the British government to intervene as the health of four detainees deteriorates inside prison walls. All are members of Action Palestine and have been detained awaiting trial, a process that campaigners claim could result in them being jailed for more than a year before their cases are heard. With legal avenues exhausted, supporters say the hunger strike has become a last resort.
Palestine Action members are being held on suspicion of being involved in break-ins at Elbit Systems’ British subsidiary in Filton, near Bristol, where equipment was reportedly damaged, and two military aircraft were sprayed with red paint at a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire. The prisoners deny charges such as robbery and rioting.
The prisoners are demanding bail, an end to what they say is interference with their mail and reading, access to a fair trial, and an end to the ban on Palestinian action. In July, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s British government banned Palestinian action under controversial anti-terrorism laws.
Heba Muraishi is on her 61st day of fasting. Teuta Hoxha is on the 55th day, Kamran Ahmed on the 54th day and Rewi Chiaramero on the 41st day. Hoxha and Ahmed are already hospitalized. Campaigners have described it as the largest hunger strike in Britain since 1981, and claim it was clearly inspired by the Irish hunger strike.
In 1981, the Irish Republican Army and other republican prisoners of war went on a hunger strike in Northern Ireland demanding the restoration of political status. Ten people were killed during the strike, including leader Bobby Sands, an elected member of the British Parliament. Margaret Thatcher took a tough stance publicly, but behind the scenes, changing public opinion ultimately forced the government to find a way out.
One of the prisoners, Martin Hurson, 29, died on the 46th day. Raymond MacLeish, Francis Hughes, Michael Devine and Joe McDonnell died between 59 and 61 days. Sands died after a 66-day hunger strike.
Sue Pentel, a member of Palestine Irish Jews, remembers those days vividly.
“I was here during the hunger strike,” she said. “As I went on hunger strike, marched, demonstrated, rallied and protested, I remember the merciless brutality of the British government that left 10 starving people dead.”
“Bobby Sands said, ‘Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.’ And we raised our families here, and they are the same people, this new generation that stands in solidarity with Palestine.”
“If things continue like this, some people will die.”
Standing beneath the Bobby Sands mural, Pat Sheehan fears history is dangerously close to repeating itself. He went on a hunger strike for 55 days until it was called off on October 3, 1981.
“When the hunger strike ended in 1981, I had been on hunger strike the longest, so theoretically I would have been the next to die,” he said.
By that stage, his liver was failing, he said. His eyesight was gone. He was constantly vomiting bile.
“After 40 days, you’re in the danger zone,” Sheehan said. “Hunger strikers who have been on a hunger strike for more than 50 days must be physically weakened.”
“If they are mentally prepared properly for a hunger strike, their psychological strength will increase the longer the hunger strike lasts.”
“If this continues, I think inevitably some of the hunger strikers will die.”
Mr Sheehan, who currently represents West Belfast as a Sinn Féin MLA, believes the hunger strikers associated with the Palestinian action are political prisoners, adding that Irish people understand Palestine in a way that most Westerners do not.
“Ireland is probably the only country in Western Europe where there is almost absolute support for the Palestinian cause,” he said. “Because we have a similar history of colonization, genocide and detention.”
“So when Irish people see what is happening in Gaza on their television screens, there is a huge sense of empathy.”
Ireland’s position
That empathy was increasingly reflected in political action. Ireland formally recognized a Palestinian state in 2024 and joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice alleging genocide in Gaza, a charge that Israel denies.
The Irish government has also taken steps to restrict the sale of Israeli bonds, while Ireland is boycotting the Eurovision Song Contest because of Israel’s participation and has called for its national soccer team to be suspended from international competitions.
But many campaigners say the government’s action is not enough. They claim the Occupied Territories Bill, which would ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements, has been stalled since 2018, and express anger that US military planes transporting weapons to Israel are still allowed to fly through Ireland’s Shannon Airport.
Meanwhile, the Gaza war dominates domestic politics in northern Ireland, which remains a British colony.
A visit to Jerusalem by Democratic Unionist Education Minister Paul Givan, paid for by the Israeli government, led to a vote of no confidence and threw Stormont Parliament into crisis amid heavy criticism from Irish republican, nationalist, left-wing and non-aligned political groups.
Belfast City Hall’s decision last month to fly the Palestinian flag was also met with passionate opposition from unionist councilors until it was finally approved.
For some loyalist and unionist groups, support for Israel is tied to loyalty to Britain, and Israeli flags are also flown in traditionally loyal areas of Belfast.
Genocide in Gaza has sometimes been reshaped along the fault lines of old divisions, with legacies of identities rooted along sectarian lines.
“Unity reaches Palestine”
But on the streets of Belfast, protesters say their solidarity is not rooted in national identity, but in humanity.
Damien Quinn, 33, a member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, said hunger strikes had always carried special weight in Ireland.
“We are here today to support the British hunger strikers. But we are also here for the Palestinian people who are being slaughtered every day,” he said.
Palestine Action “has made it very clear that we’ve tried signing petitions, we’ve tried lobbying, we’ve tried everything,” he said.
“So it’s heartbreaking to see how these people who are fighting against genocide are being treated in prison.”
For Rita Abramah, a 25-year-old Palestinian who has found a home in Belfast, the hunger strike is painfully nostalgic.
“My people in Palestine don’t have a voice. Solidarity is important,” she said.
“I think the hunger strikers are really brave. They’ve always been a form of resistance. It’s concerning to me and many others how long it took for the government to pay attention to them and take some form of action.
“You can’t save these people if the government doesn’t do anything about them. So this is shocking in a way, but it’s not all that surprising because we’ve seen genocide unfold and escalate without the same government doing anything.”
“All forms of solidarity reach the Palestinian people.”
