Israeli opposition leader fears new Palestinian uprising

Palestinian detainee Shireen Issawi, held by Israel without trial for alleged involvement with terrorist groups, launched a hunger strike Monday in solidarity with a prisoner who’s protested by going without food for over two months.

On 16 June, Allan launched his open-ended, full hunger strike, refusing vitamins, salts and supplements, and consuming only water.

Israel’s Supreme Court will reconvene on Wednesday to hand down its ruling on a petition demanding the release of West Bank resident Allaan, who is now in life-threatening condition.

Allan’s lawyers had called for his release on medical grounds but Israeli courts have until now rejected the demand.

Palestinians in Israeli prisons regularly go on hunger strike in protest at the prison conditions as well as the administrative detention policy, which allows indefinite imprisonment terms without charge.

Beyond arguing that the patient’s life was in danger, they could also present arguments that allowing him to die would lead to security risks, according to Physicians for Human Rights.

The attack was the third stabbing since Saturday, when two Palestinians were shot, one fatally, after they attacked security forces in two separate incidents in the West Bank.

Allan’s prior imprisonment was part of the judge’s basis for renewing his administrative detention order in May for a further six months, additionally claiming that Allan remained active with Islamic Jihad.

A protestor at a demonstration for the release of Palestinian hunger striker Mohammad Allan, outside of Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon, Israel.

Allen may become the first Palestinian political prisoner to be force-fed under Israel’s controversial new law allowing the practice, which was enacted on July 30. “Specifically, the U.S. Government remains concerned at the unequal treatment that Palestinian-Americans and other Arab-Americans receive at Israel’s borders and checkpoints”, State Department Spokesperson John Kirby said during a daily press briefing.

The use of “administrative detention”, which has previously been applied to Palestinians, came as authorities yesterday arrested another suspected Jewish extremist and extended the detention of the leader of a radical religious group. Israel’s medical association has urged doctors not to comply with force-feeding, denouncing the act as inhumane. “They wanted to prevent us from showing solidarity with a person that the state is punishing for no fault of his own”.

Both sides threw stones and Jewish protesters broke the windows of a Palestinian television news vehicle.

Doctors have not known how serious Allan’s situation has been lately because he refused to submit to an examination.