Israel frees Palestinian detainee after hunger strike

The Palestinian activist Khader Adnan, held by Israel without trial for a year, was released early Sunday in keeping with a deal reached with Adnan two weeks earlier, Palestinian reports said.

Adnan, 37, allegedly a senior member of the Iran-affiliated Islamic Jihad terror group in the West Bank, drew attention to his incarceration by going on a 56-day hunger strike that supporters said left him near death.

He was taken to a hospital in the West Bank city of Jenin for observation, reports said.

He ended the strike on June 29 after Israel agreed to release him from administrative detention two weeks later, on July 12, his lawyer Jawad Boulos and the Palestinian Prisoners Club announced at the time.

Administrative detention allows imprisonment without charge for renewable periods of six months indefinitely, and is used by Israeli military authorities to hold suspects without requiring the due process of civilian courts.

Adnan was arrested a year ago, shortly after the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, which led to a wave of arrests of hundreds of activists in Hamas and other terror groups and was a major cause of last summer’s 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

During a previous period of incarceration without trial, in 2012, Adnan carried out a hunger strike that lasted 66 days. He was released at the end of the strike, during which he ingested vitamins and salt.

This time, he refused to swallow anything except water.

The Palestinian government had warned that it held Israel responsible for his fate, while the Israeli government in mid June relaunched the process of instating a law that would allow prisoners to be force-fed when their lives are in danger.

The Palestinian leadership has cited the condition of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in its submissions to the International Criminal Court last month.