WEST BANK (Dispatches) – In the town of Dura, south of Al-Khalil in the southern occupied West Bank, a crowd of Palestinians huddle around a fire, while dozens more sit in an empty garage, beneath an array of posters of Palestinian prisoner Hisham Abu Hawwash.
This has been the scene outside the Abu Hawwash family home for weeks, as the 41-year-old continued with a months-long hunger strike in protest against his administrative detention by the Zionist regime.
On Monday, Abu Hawwah’s health deteriorated rapidly as he entered the 140th day of his strike, and the tensions outside his home were palpable.
“We are in a very difficult situation,” Saed Abu Hawwash, Abu Hawwash’s older brother, told Middle East Eye from the sit-in outside his family’s home. “Hisham could die at any moment.”
According to his family, Hisham fell into a coma in the early hours of Monday morning, as his condition continued to worsen inside the Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh) south of Tel Aviv.
“Around 3am he entered into a coma, and his situation continues to worsen every hour, every minute,” Saed, 43, said.
“He has lost his ability to speak, he can barely move. The doctors said his muscles are beginning to atrophy.
“His heart has become weak, and they are scared that at any moment his heart or other organs could fail.
“He has lots of issues with his stomach, kidneys, and liver as a result of the lack of proper vitamins and enzymes,” Saed continued, adding that Abu Hawwash, along with his youngest son, six-year-old Ezz al-Din, both suffer from a pre-existing kidney condition that requires frequent treatment.

Petition to End
‘Administrative Detention’

Meanwhile, over 14,000 Americans have signed a petition calling on the zionist regime to immediately release all Palestinian inmates on hunger strike in protest against the occupying regime’s policy of administrative detention.
The petition on Change.org -- with more than 14,100 signatures as of Tuesday -- called for the immediate release of all hunger strikers and other ‘administrative’ detainees in the zionist regime’s prisons.
The administrative detention is a type of imprisonment without formal charge or trial, often of a length of one to six months that is indefinitely renewable. It is in sheer violation of International Humanitarian Law and is often used to target and silence Palestinian activists, protesters or anyone who shows dissent against the Zionist regime.
More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly held in the regime’s jails. Over 540 of these inmates have apparently been held in administrative detention, with some of them staying in jail for up to 11 years.

Inmates Boycott Zionist Courts

Palestinian prisoners have also launched a boycott of the Zionist regime’s military courts in the occupied West Bank, as prisoner groups warn that Abu Hawwash faces “imminent danger of death”.
In an escalatory step agreed by Palestinian political parties, the 500 so-called administrative detainees began new year by refusing to show up for their court sessions. The boycott includes the initial hearings to uphold the administrative detention order, as well as appeal hearings and later sessions at the Supreme Court.
Under the banner, “Our decision is freedom … no to administrative detention,” administrative detainees said in a statement their move comes as a continuation of longstanding Palestinian efforts “to put an end to the unjust administrative detention practiced against our people by the occupation forces”.
They also noted that the regime’s use of the policy has expanded in recent years to include women, children and elderly people.