50 Palestinian prisoners have been on hunger strike for different periods in protest at the Israeli administrative detention policy.
19 days ago 30 Palestinian detainees held administratively in Israeli jails started an open-ended hunger strike to demand their release and an end to the administrative detention policy.
Last Sunday 20 other prisoners — some of them held administratively or on remand and others serving sentences — decided to join the hunger strike in solidarity with the hunger-striking administrative detainees.
In early January the administrative detainees announced a complete boycott of all judicial procedures related to their administrative detention.
The administrative detainees are being held in different Israeli prisons mostly in Negev and Ofer jails.
Last April Amnesty International said that the boycott of Israel’s military courts by hundreds of Palestinian administrative detainees “underscores the need to end this cruel and unjust practice which helps maintain Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians.”
“Nearly all the 490 Palestinian administrative detainees currently being held by Israel began a collective boycott on 1 January 2022 by refusing to participate in military court procedures that lack due process and are used merely to rubber stamp arbitrary detention” Amnesty said on its website.
“Their act of disobedience highlights the long-standing complicity of military courts in the use of administrative detention against Palestinians where individuals are held for months without charge or trial often on the whims of military officials or the minister of defense and based only on secret information provided by the Israeli security agency” the rights group added.
“Palestinian human rights defenders journalists academics and others have suffered from this cruel and inhuman practice and have been protesting it for decades including through hunger strikes. This boycott is a renewed collective call saying enough is enough” Saleh Higazi Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa stated.
