WEST BANK (Dispatches) – A Zionist regime court has rejected a petition submitted for the immediate release of a Palestinian prisoner who is in serious health condition after being on hunger strike for more than 120 days in protest against the regime’s so-called administrative detention.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) attorney, Ja wadBoulos, said on Sunday that the court refused to release 40-year-old Hisham Abu Hawash, who has been on hunger strike for 125 consecutive days in protest at his indefinite, unfair and unexplained imprisonment at the hands of the occupying regime, and to move him to a civil hospital after his health condition further deteriorated, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported.
Bolus said the court ruled that the administration of the regime’s Ramla Prison should decide whether to move the Palestinian inmate to a civil hospital or to keep him at the jail’s clinic.
This comes as the Israeli military appeals court decided last week to renew Abu Hawash’s administrative detention for four months despite his deteriorating health condition. Bolus said at the time that he will appeal the court’s decision to the regime’s high court.
Abu Hawash is said to be suffering from various pains all over his body, weight loss and constant vomiting after being on months-long hunger strike against his detention without charge or trial.
His family has already warned that he may die any moment as a result of his prolonged hunger strike, calling for urgent action to save his life before it is too late.
Abu Hawash, a father of five children, was arrested in October 2020 and held in an Israeli jail under “administrative detention”, a form of imprisonment in which the individual is never tried and can be held indefinitely.
He is one of the four prisoners who went on extended hunger strikes against their detention without charge. The other prisoners were Kayed Fasfous, Ayyad al-Harimi, and Lo’ai al-Ashqar.
Last month, 34-year-old Fasfous and Harimi, 28, suspended their months-long strikes after Zionist authorities agreed to set them free.
Fasfous finally walked out of jail and returned home to his family on December 5, after refusing to eat for 131 days in protest.
Facing widespread international criticism, the regime has also agreed to free several other Palestinians, who’ve been on lengthy strikes.
More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly held in the regime’s jails. Hundreds of them have apparently been incarcerated under the “administrative detention”. Some prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.