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Ramallah, occupied West Financial institution – The well being of the Palestinian prisoner Khalil Awawda is rapidly deteriorating, after he handed the seventieth day of his starvation strike earlier this week.
Awawda, 40, is protesting his continued detention in Israeli prisons with out trial or cost.
The daddy of 4 was arrested by Israeli forces from his house within the village of Ithna, south of Hebron metropolis within the occupied West Financial institution, in December 2021.
Like 530 different Palestinians at present held underneath such orders, Awawda was positioned in administrative detention. The coverage permits Israeli authorities to imprison Palestinians indefinitely, primarily based on “secret data” not accessible to the prisoner or their lawyer.
“Khalil underwent this starvation strike towards a public Palestinian challenge – administrative detention – which is a sword on the necks of all of the Palestinian folks,” his spouse, Dalal, informed Al Jazeera.
“What are rights teams and different organizations ready for? For him to achieve 100 or 140 days like the opposite prisoners? I name on all these establishments to intervene to save lots of the lifetime of Khalil earlier than, God forbid, one thing occurs to him.”
Israeli authorities transferred Awawda final Wednesday to an Israeli civilian hospital earlier than he was returned to Ramle (Ramla) jail clinic the place he’s at present being held.
Awawda’s lawyer Ahlam Haddad, who visited him on Sunday, mentioned in an announcement that he’s affected by “fatigue and extreme collapse” in addition to “heavy ache in all elements of his physique”. She famous he now strikes on a wheelchair and can’t rise up or see clearly.
Awawda additionally informed his lawyer that jail authorities are conditioning his switch to an Israeli hospital on his settlement to take dietary supplements, which he’s refusing – residing solely on water.
Awawda’s spouse mentioned he misplaced 17kg since his starvation strike started on March 3. “I’m very fearful over his life. He’s attending to the stage of extreme hazard.”
Particular person starvation strikes
Awawda and one different Palestinian prisoner, 27-year-old Raed Rayyan, are the most recent two in a string of particular person starvation strikes by prisoners in administrative detention since final yr in an effort to demand their freedom.
Rayyan, from the village of Beit Duqqu on the outskirts of Jerusalem, is on his thirty fifth day with out meals or drink.
In October 2021, six Palestinian prisoners went on starvation strike, with some lasting over 140 days and risking their lives earlier than Israeli authorities agreed to offer them launch dates. Their circumstances generated worldwide headlines and calls for his or her launch.
Human rights teams have lengthy condemned Israel’s coverage of administrative detention, used towards 1000’s of Palestinians residing underneath army rule within the occupied territories, as illegal, arbitrary and systematic.
In an announcement final month, worldwide rights group Amnesty Worldwide mentioned the Israeli authorities’ “widespread and systematic use of arbitrary arrest, administrative detention and torture towards Palestinians types a part of the state’s coverage of domination and management over the Palestinian inhabitants.
“These actions quantity to crimes towards humanity of apartheid, imprisonment and torture,” mentioned Amnesty.
Between 2017 and 2021, Israeli authorities issued 5,728 administrative detention orders towards Palestinians within the occupied territories, based on native prisoners’ rights group Addameer.
The numbers of detention orders issued has been on the rise since final yr, when widespread Palestinian protests erupted adopted by mass arrests. In 2021, there was a surge of 1,695 orders, Addameer mentioned, in contrast with a bit of greater than 1,100 orders in 2020.
Israel says the orders are obligatory when there’s a “cheap foundation for believing that the safety of the area or public safety” requires it.
Collective courtroom boycott
In an escalatory step taken on January 1, all prisoners in administrative detention have refused to point out up for his or her hearings in a collective boycott of Israel’s army courts and their use of the coverage.
The step consists of not attending preliminary hearings to uphold the order, in addition to attraction hearings and later classes on the Supreme Court docket.
Regardless of the boycott, which has now lasted greater than 130 days, rights teams say they proceed to doc a rise in orders issued.
“There was no progress sadly. Quite the opposite, administrative detention has elevated prior to now two months. The army courts are persevering with their work, enterprise as traditional, with out the presence of the prisoners or their legal professionals,” Sahar Francis, head of Addameer, informed Al Jazeera.
Francis famous that the goal of the boycott was to kind a collective wrestle to restrict Israel’s use of the observe, to minimize the person starvation strikes happening.
“Sadly, when the prisoners really feel that there isn’t a change or progress, you can not forestall them from pondering of present process a wrestle on a person degree,” she mentioned.
Individually, Palestinian prisoners’ teams have warned of the approaching hazard to the well being of a number of different prisoners, together with Nasser Abu Hmaid and Ali Hroub, who are suffering from most cancers.
‘With him on this battle’
Again in Ithna, Dalal has solely been permitted to go to her husband as soon as since his arrest, previous to his starvation strike, on February 13. His 4 daughters, the eldest of whom is 9, haven’t seen their father since his arrest.
Awawda, a taxi driver, has spent a complete of 12 years in Israeli prisons because the early 2000s, together with 5 years in administrative detention, break up into two durations.
“Years of a person’s life cross with out trial or cost,” mentioned Dalal. “He is aware of that if he doesn’t do that, he’ll find yourself in administrative detention for years.”
Due to his consecutive arrests, he was unable to finish his undergraduate diploma in economics at al-Quds Open College.
“We now have been with Khalil because the first second he determined to bear the starvation strike – we’re with him on this battle to safe his freedom, as a result of that is all unjust.”
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