ICSPR calls on the international community to intervene to save the lives of the Palestinian detainees on hunger strike.

Ref: 132/2021

Date: 4 Nov 2021

Press release,

ICSPR calls on the international community to intervene to save the lives of the Palestinian detainees on hunger strike.

The International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights “ICSPR” is following up with great concern and condemnation the deteriorating health conditions of the 6 Palestinian detainees on hunger strike, in a protest against their administrative detention, “which is arbitrary detention without charge or trial”. In addition to the policy of neglect and denial of their most basic legal and human rights, in contravention of the lowest principles of international humanitarian law, foremost among which are the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

According to the available data, each of the detainees: Kayed phosphorous (on hunger strike for 113 days), Miqdad al-Qawasma (on hunger strike for 106 days), Alaa Al-Araj (on hunger strike for 88 days), Hisham Abu Hawash (on hunger strike for 79 days), Ayyad Al-Harimi (on hunger strike for 43 days), and Louay Al-Ashqar (on hunger strike for 26 days) suffer from wasting, fatigue, headaches and a severe shortage of fluid in the body, which may expose the functions of their vital organs to obvious deficiencies and serious health repercussions, and may lead to undesirable results in light of the continued abuse and deliberate medical neglect by the occupation authorities.

ICSPR holds the occupation authorities responsible for the lives of the detainees in general, especially the ones on hunger strike inside the prisons of the occupation, and reaffirms that the Israeli occupation authorities deliberately pursue coercive policies against the Palestinian detainees with the aim of undermining their dignity. Accordingly, ICSPR will always support their just and legitimate demands until their liberation. Therefore:

• ICSPR calls on the international community to intervene to compel the occupation state to abide by international human rights standards, especially the conventions and charters on the rights of prisoners and those deprived of their liberty, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners of 1955 and the set of principles relating to the protection of all persons subjected to any form of detention or Imprisonment of 1988, in the context of its dealings with Palestinian detainees.
• ICSPR calls on the International Committee of the Red Cross to intervene urgently to prevent further deterioration of the humanitarian conditions of detainees on hunger strike.
• ICSPR calls on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to open an immediate investigation into the grave Israeli violations against Palestinian prisoners and detainees in occupation prisons, including hunger strikers.
• ICSPR calls on the Palestinian leadership to activate the official and popular diplomacy, and to assign Palestinian embassies and missions to international organizations, to raise awareness on the just issue of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, with the aim of mobilizing global support for them and putting pressure on the occupation authority to release them.

ICSPR