The Prisoners’ Media Office warned on Monday of the martyrdom of Palestinian detainee Maher Al-Akhras who has been on a hunger strike in Israeli jail for 85 days at any moment.
The Office said in a press release that Akhras 49 from Jenin is continuing his open hunger strike protesting his administrative detention. He is in the Israeli Kaplan Hospital in a very serious health condition it added.
The danger stage
The real danger to the strikers’ health begins after forty days of the hunger strike when continuous tissue damage and multiple organ failure happen which may lead to damage to these organs and certain death.
Sixty days after the start of the strike the main organs in the body enter the danger stage as several problems happen to the heart and kidneys as the functions of these organs are poor. This poses a real threat to the strikers’ lives. Furthermore strikers may suffer bleeding resulting from skin cracking which puts their lives at risk of death because it reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood.
Strike martyrs
Five prisoners have died as a result of a hunger strike in the Israeli occupation prisons: Abd al-Qadir Abu al-Fahm on July 11 1970 during the Ashkelon prison strike and he was the first martyr of the prisoners’ movement during the hunger strike and Rasim Halawa and Ali al-Jaafari on 24/07/ 1980 during the Nafha prison strike. Also Mahmoud Freitikh in the Junaid prison strike in 1984 and Hussein Nimer Obeidat on October 14 1994 in the Ashkelon prison strike.
The open hunger strike or the “empty stomach battle” is the detainee’s refusal to eat all kinds and forms of food that is provided to the prisoners with exception of water and salt.
