PA panel: Israel ‘trying to kill’ Palestinian hunger strikers

The Palestinian Authority Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs on Sunday accused Israel of “trying to kill” seven hunger-striking prisoners who have been fasting for 40 days.

In a statement quoted by Palestinian news agency Ma’an, the committee said Israel has refused its requests to transfer the seven, who are all being held in administrative detention, to hospital for treatment.

“The Israeli government is wearing down the prisoners deliberately, in order to force them to end their hunger strike by depriving them of medical treatment and sending them to prison wards where criminal prisoners are being held,” the statement said.

The PA’s prisoner committee submitted an emergency appeal to Israel’s High Court of Justice, asking the court to order the prisoners’ transfer to hospital.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Prison Service told the news agency that the prisoners had not been transferred to hospitals, adding that they had “only been [hunger striking] for 30 days, and they are not required to be moved to a hospital until after 35 days.”

Ma’an claimed that at least five of the hunger strikers began their strike on August 18, exactly 40 days before.

The seven prisoners have lost “all power and strength,” the committee said, and have been consuming only water, refusing vitamins or any other supplements.

Administrative detention is a form of arrest without trial used often against security suspects considered to be a threat but against whom there is insufficient evidence.

“Leaders of Israel and Israeli gang leaders were the first to bear administrative detention during the British Mandate era, and at that time they denounced it, accusing the British government of violating their basic rights,” the committee alleged. “Then the leaders of Israel were the first to apply the same rules on the Palestinians.”

“Those who claim to be victims have become war criminals and pioneers at violating the rights of the Palestinian people,” it added.

Last month, Israel suspended the administrative detention of prisoner Mohammad Allaan following a 66-day hunger strike that doctors said had caused brain damage. A court ordered an end to Allaan’s administrative detention for suspected links to Islamic Jihad, but he was promptly rearrested after being discharged from hospital in Ashkelon. He briefly resumed his hunger strike, but ended it due to health concerns.