63 PALESTINIAN INMATES SUSPEND HUNGGER STRIKE: LAWYER
The Occupied West Bank, 27 Sya’ban 1435/25 June 2014 (MINA) – Sixty three Palestinian prisoners who were among a number of detainees on hunger strike in Israeli occupation jails for more than two months have suspended their strike.
“The strikers, who have reached an agreement with the Israeli occupation prison authorities, have decided to suspend their action with the approach of (the Muslim holy month of) Ramadan,” Abu Snena, one of the prisoners’ lawyers said Tuesday, Ma’an news agency reported.
According to the lawyer, the details of the agreement between the prisoners and the Israeli occupation prison officials will be released on Wednesday, Press TV quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
Many Palestinians are on hunger strike to express their opposition to the Israeli “administrative detention,” which is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time. More than 120 of the hunger strikers have been refusing food since April 24.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has voiced concern over the deteriorating health of the Palestinian detainees in administrative detention.
More than 5,000 Palestinians are reportedly being held in Israeli prisons, nearly 200 of them under administrative detention orders.
Earlier, Raz Nizri Nizri, an Israeli occupation deputy attorney general, has defended a controversial bill that would allow the force-feeding of Palestinian prisoners, calling on the Knesset (parliament) to go ahead with it.
“The law has appropriate checks and balances,” Nizri told Knesset Internal Affairs Committee, adding, “I recommend not talking in vague headlines about the law as violating human rights or as being a ‘torture law.’”
Force-feeding is considered a grave breach of World Medical Association’s guideline on a treatment for hunger strikers.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has called on the international community to take action against the Tel Aviv regime for its treatment of Palestinians in Israeli detention. (T/E01/IR)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
