Jerusalem24 – 75 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons started this morning an open-ended hunger strike in support of hunger-striking prisoners Raed Rayan and Khalil Awawdeh.
They join 40 detainees who started a hunger strike three days ago.
Raed Rayan and Khalil Awawdeh have each refused food for over 100 days in protest of their continued administrative detention, despite serious health conditions and repeated failed attempts to secure their release.
Hassan Abed Rabbo, a spokesman for the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs, said in an interview with WAFA news agency that 28-year-old Raed Rayan, from the town of Beit Doqu northwest of occupied Jerusalem, has continued with his strike for 109 consecutive days.
Rayan is a former detainee who has spent nearly 21 consecutive months in administrative detention and is currently held in Ramla hospital prison due to his deteriorating health condition.
Rayan is suffering from severe weight loss, lack of fluids, vitamins and proteins, episodes of dizziness, vomiting, and generalized pain.
Abed Rabbo said the authorities have confirmed the renewal of the administrative detention order for 40-year-old Khalil Awawdeh.
40-year-old Awawdeh, from the town of Adana, west of Hebron, suspended his strike last month after 111 consecutive days. Israeli authorities reneged on a verbal agreement to release him at the end of his current detention, and Awawdeh resumed his strike three days later.
Awawdeh is now lying in Assaf Harofeh Hospital. He is married and a father of four, and is also a former detainee who has spent years in Israeli prisons.
Out of the 4,600 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons, 682 are administrative detainees held without charge or trial, on the basis of “secret evidence” neither they nor their lawyers are allowed to access. Administrative detention orders may last up to six months and are indefinitely renewable.
An estimated 54,000 administrative detention orders have been issued since 1967.
In the same context, administrative detainees continue to boycott Israeli courts for 204 consecutive days to protest the practice of administrative detention.
