‘Israel’ rejects appeal to release 125-day-hunger-striking Palestinian detainee

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Israel’s High Court on Monday rejected for the fourth time an appeal to immediately release Palestinian detainee Kayed Fasfous, who has been on an open-ended hunger strike for 125 days.

The Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission said yesterday the Israeli High Court rejected an appeal for the fourth time to release Kayed Fasfous, amid fears of sudden death, as he has been on hunger strike for 125 consecutive days in protest against his unfair administrative detention without a charge or trial and to gain freedom.

Kayed is the longest hunger-striker among four other hunger-striker inmates.

He has lost over 40 kilograms of his weight, and suffers from pain all over his body. He occasionally loses consciousness, and he suffers from tachycardia, pains in his chest, and low blood pressure.

The family of Fasfous said that doctors told him that he is close to sudden death and that they noticed signs indicating the formation of blood clots.

32-year-old Fasfous, who is a father of one and from Dura village near Hebron, south of the occupied West Bank, was arrested several times before, the last one was in October 2020.

He has been on an open-ended hunger strike since July 15, 2021.

On October 14, 2021, Israel’s High Court decided to freeze Fasfous’s administrative detention.

Such a decision does not release Fasfous from administrative detention – it simply freezes the order for the period of his treatment and observation, as his health condition has been deteriorating severely.

The court’s decision also means that the administration of prisons and the Intelligence service are not responsible for his life, and turning him into an unofficial prisoner held at the hospital, under the guardianship of the hospital’s security instead of the jailors.

On October 29, Israeli occupation police and intelligence services broke into the Barzilai Hospital where Kayed is held, prevented doctors from seeing him, and handed him an order to reactivate his administrative detention, sentencing him to a new six-month administrative detention.

On November 4, Israel’s High Court decided to freeze the administrative order for the detention of Fasfous again.

Fasfous’s family and relatives are able to visit him at the Barzilai Hospital as a patient, rather than as a detainee, but they are not allowed to transfer him to any place.

He was held before at the Al-Ramla Clinic, but was transferred to the Barzilai Hospital as his health has worsened.

His family said that lately that he is facing “clinical death” after losing feeling in his lower body and spiking a high fever.

According to his brother, Fasfous was recently transferred into a smaller, windowless and unhygienic hospital room.

Kayed’s daughter, Jiwan, has repeatedly urged international human rights groups and concerned people to intervene and save her father.

“My father is very tired,” said Jiwan in an appeal to the US Congress members and human rights groups.

She continued, “I begged the whole world to help my father, but nobody listened or helped my father.”

“But I will keep begging the world to help my father,” Jiwan stressed while the tears started welling up in her eyes.

“For God’s sake, help my father⁩.”