RAMALLAH, Israeli occupation court rejected today the appeal submitted for the release of prisoner Khalil Awawdeh, who has been on an open-ended hunger strike for 156 consecutive days in protest of his detention without charge or trial, according to his lawyer.
Chairman of the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission Qadri Abu Baker held the Israeli occupation and the prison administration fully responsible for the life of Awawdeh, who suffers from severe health conditions following 156 days of hunger strike.
The spokesman of the commission, Hasan Abed Rabbo, told WAFA during a telephone call yesterday that the health condition of the prisoner, Awawdeh, is getting worse day by day, noting that he has lost more than half of his weight and suffers from weakness, acute joint pain, headaches, severe dizziness, and blurred vision to the extent that he could not recognize his wife, Dalal, who visited him at Assaf Harofeh Hospital in Israel where he was receiving treatment.
Awawdeh now requires a wheelchair to help him move.
He resumed his hunger strike on July 2nd after suspending it following 111 days of fasting in light of promises by the Israeli occupation authorities to release him at the end of his detention period, however, the Israeli authorities reneged on their promises and renewed his administrative detention to another four months.
Awawdeh, married with four children from the southern West Bank town of Idna, was detained on December 27 of last year and was slammed with six-month administrative detention.
Israel’s widely condemned policy of administrative detention allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals usually ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.
Over the years, Israel has placed thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for prolonged periods of time, without trying them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their counsel to examine the evidence.
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.
“Israel‘s use of administrative detention blatantly violates the restrictions of international law. Israel carries it out in a highly classified manner that denies detainees the possibility of mounting a proper defense,” says Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
Source: Palestine News & Info Agency