Two Palestinian prisoners declared, on Thursday, that they would embark on an open hunger strike, in protest of their imprisonment under administrative detention by the Israeli occupation authorities.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society issued a statement, explaining that the two prisoners, identified as Fadi Ghonaimat and Oday Shehada, have begun hunger strike for the past several days.
The statement further noted that the decision to strike comes in protest of the two prisoners’ administrative detention, without charges or trials, imposed by Israeli authorities.
Oday Shehada is a resident of the Palestinian refugee camp of Aldehaisha, on the outskirts of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem and Ghonaimat is a resident of the Soreef village, on the outskirts of Hebron city, in southern West Bank
No further details were reported.
Noteworthy, Israeli-imposed administrative detention has been utilized by Israel for decades, and remains a controversial issue in terms of legality. By means of this policy, Israel puts many Palestinians in custody, without charge or trial, for periods of four to six months. In many cases, the six-month detention has been renewed continuously.
Over the past five decades, Palestinian prisoner-launched hunger strikes, have been frequent, some of which have achieved their goals.
Israel continues to imprison Palestinian civilians, as an Israeli attempt to suppress Palestinian resistance to the illegal occupation of the West Bank, and Gaza Strip.
Currently, Israel holds 5,000 Palestinian prisoners in about 20 prisons, both in Israel and the West Bank.
A few hundreds of those prisoners are from the Gaza Strip, which Israel unilaterally disengaged, back in 2005, but enforced a land, sea and air siege on the coastal territory, two years later.
