30 detainees are on hunger strike to end the policy of administrative detention

Written by: Attorney Ali Abu Hilal *
In an unprecedented collective struggle, 30 administrative detainees continue their hunger strike for the tenth day in a row, as they embarked on an open hunger strike on Sunday, corresponding to 9/27/2022, in light of the occupation authorities' refusal to end their administrative detention and release the administrative detainees.
The prisoners, who are from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, confirmed in a statement to them, "In the context of our continuous struggle, we begin, with an open hunger strike, our demand for clean air, a sky without bars, space for freedom, and a family meeting at a table, while the demand of the occupation has stripped us of our reality." The social, our national and humanitarian role, and turning us into rubble, and between our demand and their demand, the occupation force decides through the abhorrent policy of administrative detention. We raise the sword, realizing what awaits us in terms of oppression, abuse, isolation, the confiscation of our clothes and pictures of our children, and we are put in cement cells devoid of everything except our bodies and our pain, continuous searches, periodic transfers, no cigarettes, no water bottles, and we can barely breathe. ". The prisoners said: "Waging this battle against the policy of administrative detention, which we hope will roll over with the joining of all administrative detainees, is an important link in the chain of struggle to end this heinous crime, what distinguishes it is that it is carried on the shoulders of a group of activists who have accepted to fight it to raise their voice against the injustice of the occupation." And on the way to ending this arbitrary policy is a renewal of our Palestinian revolutionary morals, which the forces of oppression were unable to neutralize or extract, for the will makes the impossible, and with the will of our people we will win. Prisoners, other prisoners from the Islamic Jihad Movement and other administrative prisoners may join the thirty prisoners in their battle against administrative detention.
The detainees who initiated the strike are: Nidal Abu Aker, Ihab Masoud, Asim Al-Kaabi, Ahmed Hajjaj, Thaer Taha, Rami Fadayel, Lotfi Salah, Salah Al-Hamouri, Ghassan Zawahra, Kanaan Kanaan, Ashraf Abu Aram, Ghassan Karaja, and Saleh Abu Alia. Awad Kanaan, Laith Kasabra, Saleh Al-Jaidi, Basil Mezher, Majd Al-Khawaja, Jihad Shriteh, Haitham Siaj Ramallah, Mustafa Al-Hasanat, Azmi Shreteh, Muhammad Abu Ghazi, Ahmed Al-Kharouf, Nasrallah Al-Barghouti, Muhammad Fuqaha, Tamer Al-Hajjouj, and Sinar Hamad , Raghad Shamrukh, and Zaid al-Qaddumi. These prisoners have suffered during the past years from the policy of administrative detention, and they are freed prisoners, and some of them have extended administrative detention against them more than once. From late 2011 until the end of this year The prisoners and detainees carried out more than 400 individual strikes, most of which were against administrative detention.
The number of administrative detainees in the occupation prisons has currently exceeded 780, including at least 6 minors and two female prisoners, and the largest number of them are in the Negev and Ofer prisons, and this percentage is the highest since the popular uprising in 2015.
From 2015 until this year, the occupation authorities issued more than 9,500 administrative detention orders, and since the beginning of the current year 2022, they issued about 1,365 administrative detention orders, and the highest percentage of administrative detention orders was issued last August, amounting to 272. It is noteworthy that more than 80% of the administrative detainees are former detainees who have been subjected to administrative detention many times, including the elderly, patients, and children.
It is noteworthy that 28 of the detainees currently on hunger strike were isolated in four rooms in "Ofer" prison, while the human rights detainee Salah Al-Hamouri was isolated in the cells of "Hadarim" prison, and the detainee, Ghassan Zawahra, in the cells of "Negev" prison. Prison administrations began threatening to impose more penalties on the hunger strikers, bearing in mind that in all cases of individual and group strikes, they automatically impose a series of penalties, including: depriving detainees of visits, stripping them of their belongings, isolating them in solitary confinement, and deliberately transferring them continuously, except for On the practice of methods aimed at psychological pressure and abuse
The administrative detainees who are on hunger strike announced, on the second day of their open hunger strike, their boycott of the Israeli occupation courts of various degrees, in the context of their struggle against the crime of administrative detention. Its historical role, represented in consolidating this policy, implements what is issued by the occupation intelligence service, the Shin Bet.
Today, the open hunger strike of administrative detainees enters its tenth day, and they are stronger, more solid, and determined to continue their strike, until their legitimate demands to end the policy of administrative detention and liberate them from prison are met, and with this unprecedented struggle, they launch an uprising against the crime of administrative detention. It is a detention without charge or trial, based on a secret file and secret evidence that neither the detainee nor his lawyer can see, and according to Israeli military orders, the administrative detention order can be renewed unlimited times, as an administrative detention order is issued for a maximum period of six months, subject to renewal. The mass strike of about 30 administrative detainees constitutes the largest hunger strike, and it is an important uprising for them, which necessitates the initiation of a popular and national campaign, and a broad international campaign to end the ongoing administrative detention operations, and to liberate the administrative detainees from the occupation prisons, and this is what the detainees are waiting for and looking forward to. Administrators.
* Lawyer and university lecturer in international law