MIDDLE EAST: Palestinian hunger striker unable to walk after 52 days of refusing food - humanitarian group

Record ID: 340753

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Palestinian hunger striker unable to walk after 52 days of refusing food - humanitarian group
  • Date: 23rd April 2012
  • Summary: MORE OF FLAGS FLYING EXTERIOR OF TENT OUTSIDE THE FAMILY HOUSE
  • Embargoed: 8th May 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel, West bank
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAC10K1X0MU5CL379LLWCFTJY7T
  • Story Text: A humanitarian group and the family of a Palestinian prisoner who has been on a prolonged hunger strike over a controversial Israeli measure, have raised concerns for his deteriorating health and said he can no longer walk and has had to use a wheelchair to appear in court. Halahla is the fourth known Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails to go on a prolonged hunger strike in recent weeks.
    Thaer Halahla and his fellow inmate Bilal Diab have been refusing food for 52 days over being held in prison without trial. Their health condition has been severely affected, their families say.
    "He (Halahla) is now on hunger strike with his friends. Thaer has been in administrative detention for the past 23 months and on a hunger strike for 51 days, in protest against the administrative detention," Halahla's father, Aziz, said from an outdoor protest tent the family set up in the Palestinian village of Kharas near the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
    "Of course I worry about my husband and his medical condition, especially after I hear all these news (about him), but I believe in God and believe in fate and I know my husband and trust him. I hope that God will be with him," added his wife, Shireen.
    Israel has already struck deals with two Palestinian detainees this year after they staged prolonged hunger strikes but the ad-hoc campaign has gathered unexpected momentum.
    Some 1,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have entered their second day of hunger strike, the first mass hunger strike in decades, raising the stakes in a protest about jail conditions and justice that has put the Jewish state under heightened scrutiny.
    The hunger strikers have a long list of complaints, including the Israeli use of solitary confinement, the difficulty many having in securing family visits and the strip searches that are imposed on visitors. It also fits into their much broader battle to secure an independent homeland.
    Halahla, 33, a member of the militant group Islamic Jihad which is committed to Israel's destruction, was detained from his home by the Israeli army in June 2010 and has been imprisoned without trial since then. He has complained of repeated mistreatment by Israeli prison authorities.
    Palestinians denounce the so-called administrative detention, whereby Israel can imprison suspects indefinitely, without ever informing them of the charges they face or presenting their lawyers with any evidence.
    Israel says it uses detention without trial to protect intelligence sources in any legal proceedings against a Palestinian suspect.
    The measure has drawn criticism from human rights groups and the European Union.
    The Israeli centre of the humanitarian group Physicians for Human Rights condemned the Israeli practice.
    "He can't walk now, he was brought to the clinic and to the court as I said on wheelchair and his family is saying that he is vomiting. I think that both of them Bilal (Diab) and Thaer, you can defiantly see how the policy of arrests and detentions is determinant for their life. They are many years in prison, out and in, you cannot plan a life, you do not know whether you will be taken or you will stay free and for how long you will stay free. Not only because you will be brought to arrest and trial but also because you can just arbitrarily be detained under administrative detention. Thaer have not seen his new-born baby," Hadas Ze'ev, spokesperson for the group, told Reuters from the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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