Agencies-Gaza post
75 Palestinian inmates go on hunger strike to support two striking prisoners
An open hunger strike by some 75 Palestinian freedom fighters detained in Israel for opposing the occupation began on Sunday in solidarity with the two administrative detainees Khalil Awawda and Raed Rayyan.
The Prisoners Affairs Commission’s spokesman, Hasan Abed Rabbo, said that Rayyan, 28, has been on a hunger strike for 109 days in order to end his wrongful administrative imprisonment without accusation or trial.
For 23 days, 40-year-old Khalil Awawdeh of the village of Idna in the Hebron sector of the southern West Bank has been on a hunger strike in opposition to his protracted administrative detention without accusation or trial.
Awawdeh broke his 111-day fast last month after receiving assurances from Israeli prison officials that his administrative detention would not be extended; however, a week later, after the occupation authorities broke their word that they would not lift his unfair detention order, he resumed his hunger strike.
Palestinians can be held indefinitely without being charged or facing a trial under Israel’s widely denounced administrative detention policy, which is based on secret material that even the detainee’s attorney is not allowed to see.
More than 680 Palestinians are currently being held by Israel under administrative detention, which is prohibited by international law. The majority of these detainees were previously imprisoned for years in response to their resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Israel’s administrative detention policy has been dubbed a “cruel, unjust tactic that helps preserve Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians” by Amnesty International.
