100 Palestinian inmates fast in solidarity with hunger strikers

Some 100 Palestinian security prisoners on Wednesday joined a mass hunger strike in Israeli jails, according to reports in Palestinian media.

The inmates launched the fast in solidarity with three hunger strikers protesting their detention without trial — Bilal Kayed, who has been fasting for 44 days, and Muhammad and Mahmud al-Balboul, who launched a hunger strike 23 days ago, the Ma’an news agency reported.

The Israel Prisons Service was working to have the prisoners end their hunger strikes, sanctioning them with NIS 600 ($156) fines, solitary confinement and barring their family members from visiting, the report said.

The Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs said on Wednesday that Kayed was in “life-threatening condition” as a result of his hunger strike.

Kayed began his strike last month in protest of his internment under Israel’s administrative detention law, which allows the country to hold people without charges for renewable six-month periods.

He had served a 14-and-a-half-year sentence for activities in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, labeled a terrorist organization by Israel, the European Union and the United States, and was due to be released on June 15.

However, on the day he was to have been released, Israeli authorities placed him under administrative detention, prompting him to begin the hunger strike.

Earlier this month, Issa Qaraqe, head of the Palestinian Authority’s commission for detainee affairs, said Kayed had been transferred to a hospital twice in a 24-hour period due to failing kidneys.

The 35-year-old from near Nablus in the West Bank has lost about 30 kilograms (65 pounds) and is “refusing medical inspections and won’t take anything but water,” Qaraqe added in a July 14 statement.

A spokesman for the Israel Prisons Service confirmed his hunger strike without giving further details, while the Shin Bet domestic security agency refused to discuss the reason for his detention.

Administrative detention allows authorities to hold suspects without divulging intelligence sources.

The system has been criticized by Palestinians, human rights groups and members of the international community.

Of more than 7,500 Palestinians currently in Israeli jails, around 700 are being held under administrative detention, Palestinian rights groups say.

Palestinians have regularly gone on hunger strikes to protest their detentions.