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Five Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jail

The file photo shows the entrance to Ktzi'ot Prison, about 72 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.

Five Palestinian inmates currently being held at a detention camp in the Negev desert continued their hunger strike in protest against their detention without charge or trial.

Fadi Obeidat, a lawyer for the Palestinian Authority Committee for Prisoners' Affairs, said on Saturday that the group is calling for an end to Israel's policy of administrative detention – a controversial form of imprisonment that allows Israeli authorities to detain individuals indefinitely without charge, trial or access to counsel.

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

Obeidat said the Palestinian hunger strikers have given officials at Ktzi'ot Prison until September 1 to respond to their demand, otherwise they would stop taking fluids. He added that more Palestinian prisoners are expected to join the hunger strike after the mentioned date.

Meanwhile, there are reports that former Palestinian hunger striker, Mohammad Allan, would be transported to the Najah National University Hospital in the northern occupied West Bank city of Nablus. The news came after skirmishes broke out between a group of Israeli assailants and Allan’s relatives and supporters at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon on August 26, where the 31-year-old is being kept.

Palestinians hold flags and portraits shouting slogans during a demonstration in support of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, especially Mohammed Allan (on the poster left), in the city of al-Khalil (Hebron) in the occupied West Bank, on August 17, 2015. ©AFP

Allan ended his hunger strike on August 20. He had been on hunger strike for 65 days to protest Israel’s practice of administrative detention. Palestinians and human rights groups say Israel uses the measure in violation of international law.

Israel recently passed a bill allowing the force-feeding of hunger-striking prisoners. Critics of force-feeding, however, see it as not only a means of torture, but also an unethical violation of the subject’s autonomy.


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