RAMALLAH, July 28, 2015 (WAFA) – Detainee Udai Steiti, who was hospitalized after starting an open-ended hunger strike to protest his administrative detention, has asked for a wheelchair to access the hospital’s toilet, but his request was denied by the Israeli Prison’s administration, forcing him to “crawl to the bathroom”.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club (PPC), which covers prisoners affairs in Israeli prisons, the health condition of Steiti continues to deteriorate significantly since he first began his strike to end his detention without charge or trial.

PPC said 25-year-old Steiti from the Jenin Refugee camp, who has been on a hunger strike for 41 consecutive days over being detained by the Israeli authorities without indictment or trail, known as administrative detention, is suffering from significant weight loss and severe pain in all body parts, in addition to walking problems.

Meanwhile, prisoner Mohammad Allan from Nablus entered his 44^th day in his hunger strike against administrative detention. Allan is just one out of around 400 detainees serving administrative detention in several Israeli jails.

Administrative detention is the imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial and on the basis of secret evidence for up to six months, indefinitely renewable by Israeli military courts.

This kind of detention is frequently used when the prison authorities fail to obtain confessions in interrogations of Palestinian detainees.

According to the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, “Israel’s use of administrative detention violates international law; such detention is allowed only in individual circumstances that are exceptionally compelling for “imperative reasons of security.”

Several human rights organizations have blamed Israel for using this kind of detention as a form of collective punishment and mass detention of Palestinians.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy which violates international law.

M.N/M.H