The question of how Palestinians should engage with the Israeli legal system is complicated for prisoners and detainees, whose current and future situations, both individual and collective, are inherently intertwined with that system. From the early days of the occupation, in addition to pursuing judicial proceedings, international law, or other traditional justice mechanisms, prisoners have engaged in acts of extra-legal resistance, aimed at making the prison system itself unworkable. Actions have included the development of alternative institutions (such as political, financial, and educational systems within the prisons), noncooperation (such as refusing to comply prison protocols or refusing to work), refusal of family or lawyer visits, refusal of meals, and prolonged hunger strikes. Such acts of resistance, including recent hunger strikes, have had a reverberating effect, diffusing beyond the temporal and spatial boundaries of the physical prison institutions to influence policy and inspire local, national, and international activism. Indeed, prisoners’ resistance has managed to preserve some sense of internal political unity despite external political fracturing, and has also maintained the support of the general population when support for political parties was lacking. Finally, the prisoners’ movement has been able to maintain a spirit of resistance that challenges the perceived complacency of political leaders in recent years. This paper assesses the short and long term impacts of prison-based resistance among activist networks, and examines how hunger strikes in particular resonate in unique ways from other forms of activism. I briefly summarize the history of the prisoners’ movement, and I explain the system of alternative institutions that prisoners developed. Using the 2011-2013 hunger strikes as a case study, I then discuss the short-term impact of prisoners’ resistance on rights in the prisons, the national struggle, and international solidarity efforts. Lastly, I describe the long-term impact of prison-based resistance on individual prisoners, the state, and the national movement. The paper is based on interviews conducted by the author with former political prisoners and current activists in Palestine.