RAMALLAH, October 24, 2017 (WAFA) - Former long-term hunger striker Bilal Diab continued his hunger strike for the 12th consecutive day in protest against his administrative detention without charge or trial in Israeli jail, Sunday said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Diab, 32, was detained by occupation forces on 14 July, 2017; he was previously held under administrative detention and conducted a 77-day strike with fellow detainee Thaer Halahleh in 2012 to win his release. He conducted a 20-day hunger strike when he was detained by occupation forces in July.
Diab was transferred last week on Sunday from Naqab prison to Asqalan prison in central Israel – the fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from moving prisoners from the occupied territory to the occupying state – and placed in isolation in retaliation for his hunger strike.
Diab refrained from drinking water for two days and a half to protest his transfer to a solitary confinement.
Diab also refuses to take any nourishments or to undergo any medical checkups. Diab’s health status is continuously deteriorating; he suffers from an overall fatigue, fever, joint pain, headaches, earache, and abdominal and back pain.
Diab is held in a humid, very small and insect-infested cell. The detainee was given an old mattress and a thin blanket and uses his shoes as a pillow.
The Israeli Supreme Court is scheduled to hold a hearing on November 30 to discuss an appeal submitted for the release of Diab after an Israeli military court judge rejected his appeal against his detention without charge or trial.
“Under international law, it is permissible to administratively detain a person only in exceptional cases, as a last resort in order to prevent a grave danger that cannot be prevented through less harmful means. Israel’s use of administrative detention blatantly breaches these rules. The military must release all the administrative detainees or prosecute them, in accordance with due process,” said B’Tselem.
T.R.
