Israeli court rejects call to release Palestinian hunger strikers

Israel’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal to release a Palestinian detainee who has been on a hunger strike for months in protest of his acquittal.

Khalil Awawdeh, 40, protested his imprisonment without charge or trial in so-called administrative detention in Israel.

His family said he had been on a hunger strike for 170 days and only drank water.

Photos taken of Awawdeh by his lawyers on Saturday showed him looking frail and lying in a hospital bed.

On Sunday, the court rejected lawyer Ahlam Haddad’s appeal for Awawdeh’s immediate release because of his ill health.

The Israeli military arrested Awawdeh in December 2021, claiming he was an agent of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group — a charge his lawyers have dismissed.

Awawdeh is one of several Palestinian prisoners who have gone on a prolonged hunger strike in recent years to protest Israel’s administrative detention policies.

Israel says the policy helps keep dangerous militants off the streets and allows the government to detain suspects without revealing sensitive intelligence.

Critics say it denies due process for prisoners and is designed to quell opposition to Israel’s 55-year occupation of territories where Palestinians seek to build a future state.

Israel currently holds some 4,400 Palestinian prisoners, including militants who carried out deadly attacks and those arrested for protesting or throwing stones.

Some 670 Palestinians are currently in administrative detention, a number that increased sharply in March as Israel began a near-night arrest raid in the occupied West Bank following a spate of deadly attacks on Israelis.

Awawdeh’s family said he hadn’t eaten since he started his hunger strike in March.

Last week, Ms Haddad said her client’s situation was deteriorating after an Israeli military court rejected a request for his release, filing a petition with the country’s Supreme Court.

In light of Awawdeh’s condition, the Israeli military suspended his administrative detention while he was hospitalized, allowing family members to visit him.

In its ruling on Sunday, the court said that after reviewing classified security information about Awawdeh, the “decision on administrative detention was well-founded” and expressed hope that the detention suspension would “incentivize him to accept the decision to end the hunger strike.”