The families of the administrative detainees who have been on hunger strike for over a month confirmed earlier today to Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association that they suspended their open hunger strike after reaching an agreement with the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) which eventually yielded to their demands. Addameer’s director, Adv. Sahar Francis, visited the hunger strikers Nidal Abu Aker, Ghassan Zawahreh and Bader Ruzeh in Al-Naqab Prison earlier this morning shortly before the agreement was made. Adv. Francis confirmed that the hunger strikers health has deteriorated in the past few days and that they were suffering from severe exhaustion, weight loss, headache, dizziness, abdominal pain and jaundice.
Adv. Francis could not visit the hunger striker Munir Abu Sharar who could not attend the visit due to his health condition. Abu Sharar was temporarily transferred to Soroka Hospital yesterday after his health gravely deteriorated. Despite his health condition, he refused all medical checkups and only consented to measuring his blood pressure. Abu Sharar further refused to stay at the hospital and was transferred back to Negev isolation on the same day despite his critical health condition.
Nidal Abu Aker was also transferred to Barzilai Hospital after fainting several times in the past few days. Abu Aker’s health deteriorated after he started boycotting water on Friday in protest of his detention conditions in the isolation of Asqalan. Abu Aker had the necessary medical examinations and received treatment accordingly. The hospital’s administration and the IPS attempted to convince Abu Aker to take a glucose IV by promising to keep him at the hospital if he did so. However, he refused and was taken back to isolation in Asqala. However, Abu Aker refused getting back to the isolation of Asqalan and after hours of insisting the IPS yielded and he was transferred to isolation with the rest of the hunger strikers at Al-Naqab prison.
Addameer condemns the deliberate medical negligence that was practiced against the hunger strikers by the IPS that failed to transfer the hunger strikers to hospitals despite the severely critical health conditions they suffered from. Addameer also condemns the vindictive punitive measures and the inhumane conditions that were imposed on the hunger strikers by the IPS in an attempt to pressure them to suspend the hunger strike. Addameer stresses the necessity to continue legal and grassroots efforts both locally and internationally to put an end to the arbitrary policy of administrative detention.