Islamic Jihad said weighing mass hunger strike by prisoners
As Mohammad Allaan gives ultimatum to Israel, terror group may order jailed members to fast in solidarity
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The Islamic Jihad terror group is considering ordering its members in Israeli jails to launch an open-ended hunger strike, Channel 10 reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, the terror group was weighing a directive in solidarity with Mohammad Allaan, an alleged member of the Islamic Jihad who has been fasting for two months in protest of his detention.
The report came hours after Allaan woke up from a medically induced coma, and threatened to resume his hunger strike unless his case is resolved within 24 hours.
Allaan “declared in front of his doctors that if there is not any solution to his case within 24 hours he will ask for all treatment to stop and will stop drinking water,” the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said in a statement.
A lawyer by profession, Allaan has been held in administrative detention — a preventative security measure when intelligence suggests suspects may be involved in terror activities — since last November over his alleged membership in the Islamic Jihad terror group. He has been on hunger strike since June 18, taking only water, and lost consciousness Friday morning at the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, where he is being treated.
Allaan was awakened from his coma and his condition has stabilized, doctors at Barzilai said Tuesday. Doctors had been giving Allaan water and salts intravenously, and he had also been connected to a respirator.
Following an appeal for Allaan’s release on medical grounds, the High Court found Monday that “there is no change in the justification for holding [Allaan] in administrative detention,” and said it would reconvene Wednesday for a further hearing on his possible release.
At a High Court hearing Monday, one of the doctors treating Allaan said that if he were to continue his hunger strike he was likely to go into a fatal decline.
The Justice Ministry released a statement ahead of Monday’s hearing that included an offer to free Allaan “if he agrees to go abroad for a period of four years.” His lawyer immediately dismissed the proposal.
Several demonstrations in support of Allaan have been held since his condition began to deteriorate over the past two weeks, with pro-Palestinian protesters facing off against right-wing Israeli counter-protesters and Israeli police in sometimes violent confrontations.
The Times of Israel Community.