News / Palestine

Another Palestinian prisoner goes on hunger strike in Israeli jail

Sunday, 03 April 2016 6:23 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 03 April 2016 6:22 AM ]

An Israeli soldier fires a tear gas canister toward Palestinian protesters as they demonstrate to mark the Land Day outside the compound of the Israeli Ofer Prison near the occupied West Bank city of Beitunia, March 30, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Palestinian authorities say a young Palestinian man has launched a hunger strike at an Israeli detention facility near the occupied West Bank city of Beitunia to protest his administrative detention.

The family of 34-year-old Mohammad Dawod informed the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society on Saturday evening that the inmate, a resident of the central West Bank city of Bethlehem, has stopped eating food since eight days ago in protest against his detention at the Ofer Prison without any charge or trial.

Dawod was previously sentenced to 10 years in prison; he served five years before being released following a 2011 agreement between Israel and the Hamas resistance movement to release Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.

There are reportedly more than 6,500 Palestinians held at Israeli jails. Hundreds of the inmates have been apparently incarcerated under the practice of administrative detention, which is a policy under which Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli detention facilities without trial or charge.

Some Palestinian prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to eight, ten and eleven years.

The Palestinian inmates regularly hold hunger strikes in protest at the administrative detention policy and harsh prison conditions.

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