RAMALLAH, January 26, 2016 (WAFA) – Israeli physicians at Aful hospital, where hunger striking journalist Mohammad al-Qiq is being held, have threatened to force-feed al-Qiq, according to Minister Issa Qaraqe, chairman of the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission.
Qaraqe cited Hanaa Khatib, al-Qiq’s attorney, as saying that al-Qiq has seen a significant deterioration in his health, following 63 days of uninterrupted hunger strike to protest his administrative detention in Israeli jails, without a charge or trial.
She said Israeli physicians at Aful hospital threatened to force-feed him despite of the deterioration in his health.
Meanwhile, the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission said, in a statement Tuesday, that the Supreme Court of Israel is due on Wednesday to hear a plea on whether to cancel the administrative detention term of al-Qiq and thus release him.
It said any decision by the Supreme Court that does not secure al-Qiq’s release means that the court has legalized his death.
On Monday, Faihaa Shalash, al-Qiq’s wife, told reporters at a press conference in Ramallah that her husband was on the verge of death, and that he lost his ability to speak.
Al-Qiq, a 33-year-old Palestinian journalist, launched a hunger strike on November 25, 2015, in protest of being held in jail under administrative detention, without charge or trial. Since then, al-Qiq has been refusing to take nutritional supplements or undergo medical checkups.
On January 16, 2016, the Israeli military court of Ofer rejected an appeal to release al-Qiq and ordered that he remains an administrative detainee regardless of his health deterioration.
Israeli Supreme Court has initially scheduled a hearing on February 25 before rescheduling it to January 27 following a request submitted by the Palestinian Prisoner‘s Society (PPS).
Al-Qiq is the first Palestinian hunger striking detainee to be force-fed by Israeli authorities since the enactment of the force-feeding law by the Israeli Knesset in July 2015.
In July 2015, Israel‘s parliament enacted the force-feeding law of prisoners on hunger strike, a move that was met by vehement opposition from the country‘s medical association.
There are more than 500 Palestinian prisoners being held under administrative detention, a controversial Israeli practice that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for up to sex-month intervals that can be renewed indefinitely.
Israeli officials claim the practice is an essential tool in preventing attacks and protecting sensitive intelligence, but it has been strongly criticized by the international community as well as by both Israeli and Palestinian rights groups.
The Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, said international law stipulates that administrative detention may be exercised only in very exceptional cases. Nevertheless, Israeli authorities routinely employ administrative detention on thousands of Palestinians.
Israel uses administrative detention regularly as a form of collective punishment and mass detention of Palestinians, and frequently uses administrative detention when it fails to obtain confessions in interrogations of Palestinian detainees.
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
