When Bobby Sands started a hunger strike in protest of “the troubles” in Northern Ireland in 1981, it was given wide coverage in newspapers and broadcast reports around the world.

His death on May 5, 1981, and the deaths of nine other hunger strikers caused an upsurge in both activity and recruitment of the Provisional Irish Republic Army, from those who praised the sacrifice of the strikers and condemnation of those who felt that the Irish in the north should just keep quiet and suffer the bias, discrimination, and hatred of those in control of the government, the British.

To its credit, the press around the world paid attention to the issues involved at the time and the deaths of nine others with Sands, and so the centuries-old control of Ireland by England was brought to the world’s attention, and for years attempts were made to try to reconcile the problem of a very old occupation.

Now comes a hunger strike in which some 1,600 are estimated to have started about a month ago, with some 1,000 continuing. Have you heard of it? Probably not. Perhaps, it is because it is among Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and it is a potential tragedy of great proportion. The hunger strikers are asking several things that prisoners around the world, at least in the “free world,” are provided without much resistance by their jailers.

In this case, however, there is not much, if any, coverage in the mainstream media, not in the U.S., according to Jewish Voice for Peace (JvP). What the prisoners are seeking: access to phones, family visits, basic and appropriate medical care, an end to solitary confinement, and the end of administrative detention (indefinite detention without charges or trial). That seems like a modest list of things that even prisoners need while they are being detained, with some facing the prospect of administrative detention, which could mean imprisonment for life.

The U.S. has had its own hunger strikers to deal with, this time at Guantanamo, where hundreds of Muslims were being kept since the time of the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq. The George W. Bush Administration did not want to keep those they considered terrorists in the Middle East in the U.S. proper, so they constructed the prison in Cuba. They believed that keeping them out of the U.S. would make it easier to detain them, many without charge. In the sweeps that resulted from the call to capture terrorists, many who had done nothing wrong were imprisoned there and many were youngsters at the time of capture.

When hunger strikes began among the Guantanamo prisoners, there was considerable coverage in the domestic press, but the government did not want any of them to die in captivity on Bush’s watch, so they started a program of forced feeding, which is widely considered a form of torture. Anyone who has undergone just one session of forced feeding has readily agreed that it is, indeed, torture.

That was not the first case of forced feeding that drew the interest of the world’s press. The women suffragettes in both the U.S. and England used hunger strikes to call attention to the injustice of their not having the right to vote, even though they were at least half the population. And, black citizens and other minorities have undergone similar and, in many cases, worse treatment before they were granted the franchise. The U.S. has had its more recent hunger strikes (in the religious sense, it is a fast), including Cesar Chavez, leader of the United Farm Workers, who fasted three times and drew the support of some of the leading figures in both politics and entertainment. In that way, he brought the American people’s attention to the plight of farm workers around the country.

One of the most famous cases was Gandhi, who fasted several times in protest of the continued colonial occupation of India by the United Kingdom. There are many others, but in most instances, the word was out and most of the people of the country at least had heard of the fast or hunger strike. Again, some of these fasters were not imprisoned because the authorities did not want any fallout from anyone on a hunger strike to die in custody, thereby becoming a martyr to the cause.

In the case of Israel and the most recent hunger strike of Palestinians, even though few might be paying attention in the world press, they do not want the strikers dying in their custody. So, there was at least one report that Israel might seek foreign doctors to force feed the prisoners, as necessary to keep them alive.

The problem with that is that the World Medical Association, in a 1975 declaration in Tokyo, stated that doctors were not to perform forced feeding, as it is in violation of medical ethics, since it is considered to be torture. Eventually, the American Medical Association (AMA) endorsed the WMA declaration, but since neither body has any legal power, it can be assumed that governments will do what they want. For the U.S., there is an out in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations which, in the case of hunger strikes, states: “It is the responsibility of the Bureau of Prisons to monitor the health and welfare of individual inmates, and to ensure that procedures are pursued to preserve life. It also states that when “…a medical necessity for immediate treatment of a life or health threatening situation exists, the physician may order that treatment be administered without the consent of the inmate.” And, how hard would it be for prison officials, in the U.S. or Israel or any other country, to declare an inmate incompetent, so that force feeding the individual can be effected?

The New York Times did publish a statement by Marwan Barghouthi, although in a “correction” in a later edition, it identified him as a terrorist, not just the strike leader, according to JvP, which noted that the Times “buckled to right-wing pressure,” in making the correction. Barghouthi’s statement, in part, asked, “What is it with the arrogance of the occupier and the oppressor and their backers that makes them deaf to this simple truth: Our chains will be broken before we are, because it is human nature to heed the call for freedom regardless of the cost.

… [The state of Israel] turned basic rights that should be guaranteed under international law — including some painfully secured through previous hunger strikes — into privileges its prison service decides to grant us or deprive us of.” While there is war, turmoil, and disaster around the world, the quest for justice is never ending and there is hope among those who are voiceless.