Khader Adnan refuses medical tests, continues strike
Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, 37, continues his open hunger-strike that he started 12 days ago, demanding an end to his administrative detention by Israel, the Palestinian Prisoner's Society says. Adnan told a PPS lawyer, who visited him in solitary confinement in the Israeli HaDarim jail, that the Israeli Prisons Services began imposing sanctions on him since the first day of his strike. Sanctions have included sending him to solitary confinement, preventing him from going out to the jail's yard, receiving a radio or a newspaper, and having a pen or a writing book. Adnan said that he refuses to take medical tests or any vitamins, and is currently only drinking water. His main goal is to prevent Israel from tarnishing the achievement of prisoners who secured their freedom by going on hunger strikes in the past, only to be rearrested by military forces, he wrote in a letter earlier this week.
Adnan was detained on July 8, 2014 and sentenced to administrative detention for the 10th time in his life. In 2012, Adnan's 66-day hunger strike in an Israeli prison in 2012 inspired hundreds of prisoners to take on Israel's policy of holding detainees without charge. According to the Palestinian Prisoner's Center for Studies, Israeli authorities have issued over 300 administrative detention orders for Palestinians since the beginning of 2015, six times as many as were issued in the same period the previous year. The statistics suggests a massive increase in Israel's incarceration of Palestinians without charge or trial despite repeated promises to limit the practice in line with international norms.
From Ma'an News Agency, May 16
Israel prisoner force-feeding measure becomes law
Khader Adnan was released July 12 following a 55-day hunger strike in Israeli prison—but detained again the following day while on his way to pray at al-Aqsa mosque. Israeli said he was detained for lacking an Israeli entry permit and would be deported to the occupied West Bank. (Electronic Intifada, Reuters)
On July 30, Israel's Knesset passed a law that allows the force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strikes if their lives are at risk. The law, which passed in a close vote of 46 - 40, requires that the force-feeding of an inmate be sanctioned by a judge following the recommendation of a doctor. If a request for force feeding is approved, the law mandates that it be carried out in "as dignified a manner as possible" in private and allows the use of "reasonable force" to carry out the task. (Jurist)
Israel court lifts detention order against hunger striker
Israel's high court on Aug. 19 suspended an "administrative detention" order on hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner Muhammed Allan, but said he must remain in hospital pending a decision on his future. "Due to the petitioner's medical condition he will remain in intensive care," said the ruling. "This means that for now, owing to the hunger striker's medical condition, the administrative detention order is no longer operative." The court said that for now he should be treated like other hospital patients. Earlier, an MRI scan revealed that Allan had suffered brain damage as a result of his hunger strike, which he had maintained since June 16. The order comes a month after Israel passed a law allowing the force-feeding of prisoners. (AFP, Jurist)