Addameer - Ramallah: Sixty-one year-old prisoner Hossam Ruzza, from Nablus, suspended his open hunger strike on Wednesday, 1st May 2019, after 43 days, as confirmed Addameer lawyer. Ruzza’s decision came after reaching an agreement with the occupation authorities, according to which his current administrative detention will not be renewed. Thus, the release date of Hossam Ruzza will be 13 July.

The occupation forces arrested Hossam Ruzza on 17 April 2018 and issued an administrative detention order against him, which was renewed twice. Thus, Ruzza has spent more than a year in administrative detention, without charges or due process. During his detention, Raza was subjected to inhumane and ill treatment. He was put in solitary confinement in the Rimon Prison, where his clothes were confiscated. During his solitary confinement, he was also subjected to violent search of his cell up to four times a day before being transferred to solitary confinement in Eshel Prison.

Ruzza began an open hunger strike on 19 March, demanding his release, during which his health condition deteriorated. He began to suffer from low blood sugar levels, liver problems, and joints pain. The occupation authorities transferred him to the Nitsan Medical section at the Ramleh prison compound. During the same period, Addameer lawyer was able to visit him and filed an appeal against his current detention order. Ruzza remained firm on his demand to not have his detention renewed, until he reached an agreement, yesterday, with the occupation Attorney General, through Addameer lawyer, to accept his demand, in exchange of suspending his hunger strike.

Addameer welcomes the agreement achieved by Hossam Ruzza, stressing that the occupation authorities bear ful responsibility for all the health effects that he undergoes, after forty-three days of hunger strike. Addameer also reaffirms that the administrative detention policy applied by the occupation authorities against Palestinians violates all the norms of international law. It is a systematic violation of the Palestinian prisoners’ rights and a tool of vengeance and torture against them. Addameer calls upon the Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention and the international community in general to pressure the occupying state, in order to release all Palestinian administrative detainees and to end the administrative detention policy.