Palestinian prisoner on hunger striker falls into coma

US-sponsored peace negotiations in the Middle East have stalled since April 2014.

Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is a network of organizers and activists, based in North America, working to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom. Israel’s medical association has urged doctors not to comply with force-feeding, denouncing the act as inhumane. They searched his office and sifted through his documents, according to Addameer, a group that advocates for Palestinian prisoners. Authorities have not yet approached a court to ask for force-feeding authorization. A hospital in Beersheva refused to carry out blood tests without his consent.

On Wednesday, some 200 supporters of Allan clashed with Israeli right-wingers near the hospital. “We decry it as a terrorist crime”, Netanyahu said afterward. It was not clear what the liquids were. “He considered Israeli administrative detention barbaric even before his own detention“, Ameed told Anadolu Agency.

Allowing Allan’s health to deteriorate poses long-term risks, Karni said.

Mohamed Allan, 31, slipped into a coma on Friday after ingesting only water since June 18 in protest at his detention without charge by Israeli authorities.

Israel in the past has acceded to hunger-striking prisoners’ demands and has sometimes released prisoners.

Israeli police detains a protester at a demonstration for the release of Palestinian hunger striker Mohammad Allan, outside of Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon, Israel.

A court order in favour of the government would allow doctors to then proceed with force-feeding, but the doctors could refuse to do so if they decide it is unethical. “He decided to go on hunger strike even if it cost him his life”.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, has called force-feeding, even if intended for the patient’s benefit, “tantamount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”. For this reason, it resorts to force-feeding to break the hunger strike.

Allan is charged with nothing and held on secret evidence; the ongoing imprisonment of Allan is clearly a political mechanism meant to undermine the hunger strike as a powerful tool of Palestinian political organizing inside the prisons. Al-Taj was critically wounded and later died of his wounds.

In that case, he said, the patient would likely die in a very short time if no medical assistance was given.