Hunger striking terror suspect moved to new hospital

A Palestinian prisoner allegedly affiliated with Islamic Jihad, who is on a 52-day hunger strike, is moved under heavy guard to a hospital in Ashkelon Monday, after doctors at the Beersheba hospital where he was kept refused to force-feed him.

Mohammed Allaan is accompanied on the trip by a slew of top officials from Magen David Adom emergency health services and the Health Ministry, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to have personally briefed the escort.

The incident prompts the Israel Prison Service to set up a special emergency room at its medical center to start treating hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners internally.

The activist, held without charge since November, was placed in intensive care when he became unable to absorb drinking water. He, along with some 120 additional prisoners, are protesting the terms of their incarceration as well as their treatment from prison authorities.

Doctors are instructed to force-feed Allaan only if his life was in immediate danger. If carried out, the force-feeding would be the first instance of the practice in Israel since the Knesset’s adoption on July 30 of a new law legalizing it — a move decried by UN and Israeli medical officials.