RAMALLAH, July 13, 2015 (WAFA) – Israeli prison authorities have resorted to various sanction measures to force a hunger striking Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails to end his strike, Monday reported the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club (PPC).

Prisoner Udai Steiti, 25, from Jenin, has been on a hunger strike for 26 days in protest of his administrative detention.

Steiti told a PPC attorney that the prison administration placed him in solitary confinement as a form of punishment for his hunger strike.

The prison administration further confiscated his electronic devices, prevented him from showering for almost 12 days, and refused to give him drinking water in light of the hot weather conditions.

In an attempt to counter the strike, the prison guards also set up a barbecue outside Steiti’s cell to grill meat in front of the starving hunger striking prisoner.

There are currently about 500 detainees serving administrative detention in several Israeli jails, without charge or trial.

Under administrative detention, a prisoner faces no clear criminal charge nor does he/she appear before the court of law for trial. This kind of detention has been widely used by the Israeli authorities against Palestinian prisoners.

Although it is allowed in certain circumstances in international law, it has been widely used by Israel against Palestinian prisoners who do not admit to have performed acts punishable under Israeli laws.

According to international law, administrative detention can be used only in the most exceptional cases, as the last means available to preventing danger that cannot be thwarted by less harmful means. Yet Israel uses this form of collective punishment systematically.

M.N./T.R.