Prisoner Maher Al-Akhras continues his open hunger strike for the 72nd day Tuesday rejecting the unjust administrative detention against him amid warnings of the seriousness of his health condition.
Qadri Abu Bakr the head of the Prisoners and Ex-prisoners Affairs Authority stated that the prisoner Maher Al-Akhras’s condition is worsening day after day with his refusal to take any subsidies and his insistence on continuing his strike until his demand for his immediate release is accepted.
Bakr warned that the adamant Israeli occupation’s rejection of his demands and the continuation of his strike might lead to damage to his heart eyes or ears after refusing to take supplements.
Akhras’s family had earlier demanded serious intervention to save his life before it was too late as he loses consciousness from time to time is unable to move suffers frequent convulsions and sometimes does not know who is standing before him.
Akhras said in a message from his bed at Kaplan Hospital a few days ago: “My only condition is freedom either freedom or martyrdom and in both there is victory for my people and the prisoners.”
On 27/07/ 2020 Akhras was arrested and the occupation authorities ordered his administrative detention for four months. The Israeli court tried to circumvent his strike by resorting to what it calls a freeze on administrative detention which does not mean the end of his detention.
Since the beginning of his strike Akhras had been subjected to repeated transfers as an attempt to exhaust him and discourage him from continuing his strike. At the beginning of his detention he was held in the Hawara detention center then he was transferred to Ofer prison until he was transferred to the Ramla Clinic prison and finally to the Kaplan hospital.
Akhras 49 is from Silat al-Dhahr town in Jenin. The Israeli occupation arrested him for the first time in 1989 and his detention continued for seven months. The second time was in 2004 for two years then he was re-arrested in 2009 and remained in administrative detention for 16 months. He was arrested anew in 2018 and was held in custody for 11 months.
