RAMALLAH, Sunday, August 15, 2021 (WAFA) – Ten Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons are ongoing with the hunger strike in protest of their arbitrary Administrative Detention without charges or trial, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) has reported.
PPS said the longest hunger-striker of the ten detainees is Salem Ziyadat, 40 years old, who has been on hunger strike for 35 days in protest of his detention without a charge or trial.
Mohammad A’mar, Mujahed Hamed, Kayed Fasfous, Ra’fat Darawish, and Miqdad Qawasma have also been on hunger strike for 33, 33, 32, 32, and 25 days.
The hunger-striking prisoners are experiencing difficult health conditions exacerbated by the Israeli authorities’ failure to hear 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 540 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.
