Palestinian hunger strike, a quest for freedom

Latest update: 26 September 2022 - Another 50 prisoners are expected to join the hunger strike on Thursday, WAFA reported. Moreover, severe tension prevails in Ramon prison, after the injury of the prisoner Fahd Fouad Sawalhi (41 years), from Balata refugee camp, south of Nablus, after burning his cell in protest against his continued solitary confinement for a month, according to Shehab News. 

Thirty Palestinian administrative detainees held in the Israeli occupation prisons, jailed without charge or trial, will go on an open hunger strike on Sunday in protest against their continued detention.

In a statement by the Prison Branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the prisoners are going on hunger strike under the slogan “Our Decision is Freedom”, according to Samidoun, a Palestinian prisoner solidarity network.

The statement further reported that the Israeli occupation prison authorities are trying to communicate or negotiate with the administrative detainees, and that they are committed to their demand to end their detention without charge or trial.

The administrative detainees sent a message a few days ago in which they asserted that confronting the administrative detention continues and that the practices of the Israel Prison Services “are no longer governed by the security obsession as an actual driver of the occupation, but rather are acts of revenge due to their past,” WAFA reported. 

The first 30 administrative detainees are scheduled to begin the strike on Sunday, September 25, with additional prisoners scheduled to join in the battle as it continues. They include community leaders like Nidal Abu Aker and Ghassan Zawahreh, who have spent years in administrative detention; French-Palestinian lawyer and human rights defender Salah Hammouri; student organizers like Zaid Qaddoumi; and a number of others, according to Samidoun. 

Israeli occupation authorities have so far issued more than 9,500 administrative detention orders since 2015 until now, according to the Palestinian Prisoner's Society (PPS). The Israeli authorities issued 1,365 administrative detention orders since the beginning of 2022, 272 of which were issued last August. The PPS said that administrative detainees went on more than 400 hunger strikes since 2011 against the administrative detention policy.

There are currently over 740 Palestinian prisoners jailed under administrative detention orders out of a total of approximately 4,650 total Palestinian prisoners in occupation jails, Samidoun reported. 

It is worth mentioning that administrative detention was first introduced to Palestine by the British colonial mandate before being adopted by the Zionist project. Detention orders can be issued for up to six months at a time on the basis of “secret evidence” denied to both the detainee and their lawyer. These orders are renewable, with many Palestinians spending years at a time jailed under administrative detention, and neither they nor their families and communities are sure when they will be released, according to Samidoun. 

According to WAFA, 80% of administrative detainees are former prisoners who underwent administrative detention several times, and these include old people, sick people and minors. The administrative detainees include four minors and two women, and most of them are in the Israeli prisons of Naqab (Negev) and Ofer, the highest since 2015.