Palestinian Foreign Ministry expresses grave concern over situation of hunger striking detainee

Ramallah (QNN) – The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said today it was deeply concerned over the health situation of Maher Al-Akhras, a Palestinian detainee who has been on hunger strike for 70 days in protest of his detention without charge or trial by the Israeli occupation authorities.

Al-Akhras, a father of six children, has been illegally held in administrative detention several times. He was detained in 1989 for seven months, in 2004 for two years, in 2009 for sixteen months, in 2018 for eleven months, and lastly sentenced for four months in administrative detention on July 2020, when he decided to launch his hunger strike. He was urgently moved to hospital due to the severe health deterioration, as his vital organs are failing, but continues to refuse to be treated until the punitive illegal administrative detention is terminated.

The Ministry condemned the reprehensible and illegal Israeli practice of administrative detention, which the occupying power employs as a tool of collective punishment against the Palestinian people, including children, activists, human rights defenders, journalists and parliamentarians.

It confirmed that this discriminatory policy of the Israeli occupation towards the Palestinian people is imposed in order to quell any form of resistance and to suppress the freedom of the Palestinian people.

The Ministry reiterated that the Israeli legal system, including military occupation courts, is complicit in enforcing such discriminatory regime against protected persons. “It is part of the system of occupation of subjugation, and must be exposed and condemned by States, governments, parliaments around the world as well as the UN system as a whole,” said the Ministry.

“Israel is primarily responsible and accountable for the life of the Palestinian detainees, including the life of Mr. Maher Al-Akhras. In the face of obvious Israeli contempt to Palestinian life, the Ministry urgently calls upon the international community, including governments, international organizations and relevant international institutions, to fulfill their responsibility and to exert all kinds of pressure on Israel, the occupying power, to put an end to these illegal and inhumane policies and practices against the Palestinian detainees.”