Deputy defense minister calls to force-feed Allaan

Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan calls to force-feed Palestinian hunger striker Mohammed Allaan.

Allaan, a member of the Islamic Jihad terror group, is in the 63rd day of a hunger strike demanding to be put on trial or released.

He is held since November under special anti-terror rules called “administrative detention,” which allow holding terror suspects without trial.

“The state offered to let him leave the country for four years as a way to obtain his release,” Ben-Dahan says in a statement. “He refused, and now we must act according to the force-feeding law and feed him.”

The Knesset passed a controversial law on July 30 allowing district court judges to order the force-feeding of hunger strikers if their lives are at risk. Doctors have said they would refuse to carry out the practice, which they said violates medical ethics.

“Is Israel gives in,” Ben-Dahan says, “all the prisoners will do the same thing, with the certain knowledge that the State of Israel will give in and release them.”