LONDON: Relatives and supporters of pro-Palestinian activists, weeks into Britain’s biggest prison hunger strike in decades, warned on Thursday that some are at “imminent risk” of dying, as they demanded a government meeting.

Some of the eight Palestine Action inmates — in various prisons for months awaiting trial — have gone without food for up to 47 days, protesting their treatment and over other demands.

The group, aged between 20 and 31, faces trials for alleged offences relating to break-ins or criminal damage by Palestine Action, which the government has banned under anti-terror laws.

The two longest-protesting prisoners began their hunger strikes in early November, according to their supporters, with others joining in the following weeks.

Two of the eight have paused while one has been participating on alternate days due to being diabetic, leaving five at the most peril.

“Today’s day 47 — any day after day 35 is considered a critical and severe stage of starvation,” Ella Moulsdale, next of kin of inmate Qesser Zuhrah, told a London press conference.

“This is a very deadly period,” the tearful 21-year-old said, adding Zuhrah had lost 13 percent of her body weight during the nearly seven-week hunger strike, which has seen her hospitalised twice.

James Smith, an emergency physician in the state-run National Health Service (NHS), has been in contact with some of the detainees and their relatives.

Appearing at the press conference, he warned of “the imminent risk to the health and the risk of death for all of the hunger strikers at this stage”.

“On this trajectory, put simply, the hunger strikers are dying.” The government outlawed Palestine Action days after activists, protesting the war in Gaza, broke into an air force base in southern England and caused an estimated 7 million ($9.3 million) of damage.

Some of those on hunger strike are charged in relation to that incident.

Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori challenged the ban in July, and High Court judges are expected to rule later on whether to uphold it.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2025