UN officials censure Israel for force-feeding law

UN officials have censured Israel for the approval of a law that authorizes force-feeding Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, saying the measure amounts to violation of human rights.

In a letter sent to media outlets on Saturday, the UN officials in the occupied West Bank denounced the new Israeli law as "a cause for concern to those who work to protect the right to health of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory."

The law was passed on July 30 by the Israeli parliament, Knesset.

Israeli officials have announced a decision to force-feed a Palestinian detainee who has been on hunger strike for nearly two months. Jamil al-Khatib, the lawyer of Mohammed Allaan, said on Saturday that Israeli officials are seeking a court order to force-feed the prisoner, who has been held without charge since November 2014.

The UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Piper, James Turpin of the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights, and Gerald Rockenschaub of the World Health Organization were among those who signed the letter.

"The Israeli Medical Association has said that force-feeding is tantamount to torture. United Nations human rights experts have called it a violation of internationally-protected human rights," read the letter signed by the UN officials.

"The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez, has called 'feeding induced by threats, coercion, force or use of physical restraints of individuals, who have opted for the extreme recourse of a hunger strike to protest against their detention … tantamount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, even if intended for their benefit'," the letter read.

The UN officials also described in the letter peaceful protests such as hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners as "a fundamental human right."

The officials also pointed to the Palestinian prisoners' "prolonged detention on administrative orders without charge," saying that hunger strikes are "a non-violent form of protest used by individuals who have exhausted other forms of protest to highlight the seriousness of their situations."

The so-called administrative detention is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time.

Palestinians in Israeli jails regularly go on hunger strike in protest against the prison conditions as well as the administrative detention policy.

More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly incarcerated in 17 Israeli prisons and detention centers, many of them without charge or trial.

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