AL-JALAZUN REFUGEE CAMP, Palestine (AFP) – Palestinian teenager Amal Nakhleh’s first name means “hope” in Arabic, but his parents are in despair because he is chronically ill and one of the few minors held without charge by the Zionist regime.
“Since his arrest last year I have only seen him twice, including last week when he told me he wanted to go on hunger strike,” journalist Moammar Nakhleh said of his 17-year-old son.
“This scares me because he is already very weak,” from myasthenia, a rare neuromuscular disease, and underwent surgery in 2020 to have a tumor removed from his rib cage, Nakhleh said.
Zionist regime authorities accuse Amal of throwing stones at occupation troops and have held him for a year in so-called administrative detention. The practice allows for suspects to be detained without charge for renewable six-month terms while investigations are ongoing.
Amal faces a new hearing Monday, and his father is worried that his detention could be renewed.
Administrative detention has been criticized by the Palestinians, human rights groups and foreign governments, who charge that the occupying regime abuses it.
Leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz joined the fray days ago with an editorial entitled “Enough with administrative detentions”.
“It’s time for Israel to learn to forgo this undemocratic, corrupt practice of unlimited administrative detention, without evidence or charges that can be refuted,” Haaretz said.
The editorial highlighted the case of Hisham Abu Hawash, one of more than 450 Palestinians held for more than a year in administrative detention by the occupying regime.
Six teenagers are among these prisoners, according to the Israeli human rights group Hamoked.
Tuesday’s editorial came as Abu Hawash, a 40-year-old Palestinian, ended a 141-day hunger strike after the Zionist regime agreed to his eventual release.
The deal proposed to Abu Hawash, a father of five, stipulates that his detention will not be extended beyond February 26, in return for his ending his fast.
“If the regime had evidence against Abu Hawash, it should have charged him. If not, it had to release him immediately,” Haaretz said.
According to the paper, military prosecutors “had no unclassified evidence on which to draft an indictment to present to a military court” in the Abu Hawash case.