Nine Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention currently remain on hunger strike in protest of their unfair administrative detention without a charge or trial, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
The longest hunger-striker of the nine prisoners is prisoner Salem Ziadat, 40 years old, who has been on hunger strike for 42 days in protest of his detention without a charge or trial, WAFA news agency reported.
The other prisoners are Mujahed Hamed (40 days), Kayed Fasfous (39 days), Meqdad Qawasmeh (32 days), Ahmad Hamamreh (23 days), Akram Fasfous (18 days), Alaa Aaraj (15 days), Hesham Abu Hawwash (6 days), and Omar Jaabari (5 days).
Some of the hunger-striking prisoners are experiencing difficult health conditions exacerbated by the Israeli authorities’ failure to heed their demands, said the PPS.
Israel’s widely condemned policy of administrative detention allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals usually ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.
Currently, Israel is holding some 550 Palestinians in administrative detention, deemed illegal by international law, most of them former prisoners who spent years in prison for their resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Over the years, Israel has placed thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for prolonged periods of time, without trying them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their counsel to examine the evidence.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy which violates international law.
