Sixteen Palestinian Detainees on Hunger Strike to Protest Zionist ‘Administrative Detention’

The Palestinian Commission of Detainees' and Ex-Detainees' Affairs said in a statement on Sunday that some of these prisoners have been on hunger strike for 18 days, while others have been hunger striking for 17, 12, 11 or 10 days in a row to protest against the Zionist regime’s so-called policy of ‘administrative detention,’ which is a form of imprisonment in which the individual is never tried and can be held indefinitely, Palestine’s Wafa news agency reported.

The commission noted that 40-year-old prisoner Salem Ziadat is the longest hunger-striker among the sixteen Palestinian inmates, who has been on hunger strike for 20 days in protest at his indefinite, unfair and unexplained imprisonment. 

Hundreds of Palestinian detainees are held under "administrative detention", in which the Zionist regime keeps them without charge for up to six months, a period which can be extended an infinite number of times. Women and minors are among those detainees.

The detention takes place on orders from an occupation military commander and on the basis of what the Zionist regime alleges to be a ‘secret’ evidence.

Some prisoners have been held in ‘administrative detention’ for up to 11 years.

‘Administrative detention’ is illegal under international law. However, the ‘Israeli’ occupation regime uses it to repress the Palestinian people.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express their outrage at the detention. Palestinians hold the occupation authorities fully responsible for any deterioration of the circumstances in jails.

Palestinian inmates have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression all through the years of the Zionist occupation of the Palestinian territories.

More than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in some 17 ‘Israeli’ jails, with dozens of them serving multiple life sentences.

Over 540 detainees, including women and minors, are under the Zionist regime’s ‘administrative detention.’

According to figures by the Defense for Children International, between 500 and 700 Palestinian children at the age of 12-17 are also arrested and tried in ‘Israeli’ military courts every year. Zionist forces had arrested more than 17,000 minors since 2000.