International and Palestinian organizations were concerned on Sunday about the fate of a Palestinian detainee imprisoned in Israel and now found “in critical condition”After more than four months of hunger strike.
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Hicham Abu Hawash, a 40-year-old member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad armed group suspected by Israel of being linked to attacks on the Hebrew state, began his hunger strike in August to protest the his detention without charge or trial.
The father of five from Dura, in the occupied West Bank, is subject to administrative detention, a measure allowing the Israeli authorities to detain a person without charge for a renewable period of six months.
A “very dangerous situation”
The medical teams who visited him found him in a “critical state“, Indicated Saturday evening the International Committee of the Red Cross (IARC) which said”concerned about the irreversible consequences for his health and his possible tragic death“.
“He is in a difficult and complex conditionLiad Aviel, spokesperson for the Shamir medical center in central Israel, where Hisham Abu Hawash is currently hospitalized under surveillance by Israeli forces, told AFP.
“His situation is very dangerous (…) he can no longer speak at all and is no longer aware of what is happening around him. Even if he ends his strike, he will have serious health problemsHis wife, Aïsha Hrebat, told AFP on Sunday. She added that the family’s lawyers should ask the Israeli Supreme Court to lift his detention.
“A red line”
Palestinian Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein al-Sheikh, who also participated last week in a meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also called for the release “immediateBy Hisham Abou Hawash, as well as demonstrators gathered this weekend in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
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Israel “must understand that the issue of prisoners is a red line (…) and must take full responsibility for the life of Abu Hawash», Declared Sunday during a demonstration in the Gaza Strip Ismaïl Radwan, a cadre of Hamas, the Islamist movement Hamas in power in this Palestinian enclave.
Islamic Jihad, the second armed Islamist group in the Palestinian Territories after Hamas, had threatened the Jewish state with reprisals in the event of the death of this prisoner.