NINE Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention currently remain on hunger strike in protest against their unfair administrative detention without charge or trial, says the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS).
PPS said the longest hunger-striker of the nine prisoners is prisoner Salem Ziadat, 40 years old, who has been on hunger strike for 42 days in protest against his detention without a charge or trial.
The other prisoners are Mujahed Hamed (40 days), Kayed Fasfous (39 days), Meqdad Qawasmeh (32 days), Ahmad Hamamreh (23 days), Akram Fasfous (18 days), Alaa Aaraj (15 days), Hesham Abu Hawwash (6 days), and Omar Jaabari (5 days).
Some of the hunger-striking prisoners are experiencing difficult health conditions exacerbated by the Israeli authorities’ failure to heed their demands, said the PPS.
Israel’s widely condemned policy of administrative detention allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals usually ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.
Currently, Israel is holding some 550 Palestinians in administrative detention, deemed illegal by international law, most of them former prisoners who spent years in prison for their resistance of the Israeli occupation.
Over the years, Israel has placed thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for prolonged periods of time, without trying them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their counsel to examine the evidence.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest against their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy which violates international law.
- Syrian air defence forces shot down 22 missiles fired by Israel into Syria using Russian-made Buk-M2E and Pantsir-S systems, Rear Admiral Vadim Kulit, deputy head of the Russian Centre for Reconciliation of Warring Parties in Syria, said on Friday.
There are no casualties among the Syrian military personnel or destruction of infrastructure as a result of Israeli missile strikes in Syria, he added.
Last Tuesday, the Israeli army fired missiles at a military facility in the Syrian province of Quneitra, a source in the security forces of the Arab republic reported.
Israel also attacked the headquarters of the 90th brigade of the Syrian army in the eastern part of the province.
Damascus has repeatedly appealed to the UN Security Council with a demand to put pressure on Israel in order to end systematic violations of Syria’s sovereignty, saying that such aggressive actions threaten the stability of the entire region.