Palestinians held in Israeli administrative detention are scheduled to start an open-ended hunger strike on Sunday, according to Administrative Detainees Committee. The Committee announced in a press statement that Palestinian administrative detainees in Israeli prisons will go on an open-ended hunger strike on Sunday, 18 June, to protest against their unlawful indefinite detention without charge. It added that not only would the administrative detainees from various Palestinian political factions resort to the open-ended hunger strike, but they would also continue to boycott Israeli courts as a means of drawing attention to the violation of their rights. The key demand of the detainees is bringing an end to the administrative detention regime and obliging Israel, the occupying power, to respect its obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, the Committee pointed as it called on Palestinian masses and CSOs to further engage in pro-prisoner activities. This came following the Committee’s announcement that its recent dialogue with the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) failed. During its recent meeting with IPS, the Committee presented its demands to IPS and Israeli intelligence with regards to bringing the administrative detention regime to an end, immediately releasing terminally ill novelist Walid Daqqa, 61, whose medical condition is further deteriorating due to deliberate medical negligence, lifting the penalties and other measures of collective punishment imposed on the Islamic Jihad-affiliated detainees, ending the solitary confinement of female detainees in Ramleh Prison and halting other forms of violations. The Commission pointed that IPS and Israeli intelligence turned a deaf ear to all of the above demands and even resorted to threats. Israel’s widely condemned practice of administrative detention that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing. The US State Department has said in past reports on human rights conditions for Palestinians that administrative detainees are not given the ‘opportunity to refute allegations or address the evidentiary material presented against them in court.’ Amnesty International has described Israel’s use of administrative detention as a ‘bankrupt tactic’ and has long called on Israel to bring its use to an end. 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. According to the latest figures from Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, there are currently 4,900 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 155 children and 32 female prisoners. This number includes 1,014 Palestinians placed under ‘administrative detention’, that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing. Mass arrest of Palestinians is nothing new. According to a 2017 report by Addameer, over the past 50 years, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned or detained by Israel, this figure is now believed to be closer to 1 million. This means that about 40% of Palestinian men and boys living under military occupation have been deprived of their freedom. Almost every Palestinian family has suffered the imprisonment of a loved one.

Source: En – Palestine news & Information Agency – WAFA