Palestinian Hunger-Striker, Nearing Death, Allowed Family Visit

Date: 26 October 2020 - 21:40

News ID: ۸۴۱۶۸

WEST BANK (Dispatches) – After over 90 days of being on hunger strike, Palestinian inmate Maher al-Akhras was finally allowed to receive a visit from his wife and daughter.
It was a tearful reunion, as his young daughter embraced her father’s frail, bony body.
According to medical personnel from the International Committee of the Red Cross who have been monitoring his medical condition, Al-Akhras is nearing death.
This is the first visit he has been allowed from his family since he was taken into custody on July 27th by the Zionist regime’s authorities. He has also been denied access to legal counsel and has never been told what his charges are.
The 49-year-old Palestinian prisoner, the father of six children, was detained on July 27 and held under the administrative detention order, with no charge. This has led him to start a hunger strike in an attempt to seek justice.
Physicians have already warned of damage to several organs of the Palestinian prisoner’s body, such as the kidneys, liver, and heart, adding that the inmate’s senses of hearing and speaking have also been affected.
The United Nations has called on the Zionist regime to put an end to the practice of administrative detention and immediately release Al-Akhra.
Michael Lynk, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, strongly called on the occupying regime to end administrative detention, in which the regime keeps the detainees for up to six months, a period which can be extended an infinite number of times, sometimes for years
In a statement, he also called on the regime to release Akhras, saying "Mr. Al-Akhras is now in very frail condition, having gone without food for 89 days.”
"Recent visits by doctors to his hospital bed in Israel indicate that he is on the verge of suffering major organ failure, and some damage might be permanent,” Lynk added.
He called on the Zionist regime "to abolish” the practice of administrative detention and free those detainees it has placed behind bars in its prisons.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express their outrage at the detention. Palestinians hold Zionist regime authorities fully responsible for any deterioration of the circumstances in jails.
More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly held in the regime’s jails.