Ramallah, July 31 (RHC)-- A Palestinian inmate in an Israeli jail continues his open-ended hungSadek Kmailer strike for the third consecutive week in protest against Israel’s so-called policy of administrative detention and other repressive measures.
The 50-year-old Sadek Kmail, who hails from the town of Qabatiya in the occupied West Bank, started his hunger strike 18 days ago in protest against Israel's so-called policy of administrative detention – a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge, Palestine's official Wafa news agency reported on Sunday.
Kmail was detained by the Israeli occupying forces in March this year and has been placed under administrative detention for six months ever since. Kmail is the father of Mahmoud Kmail, who was killed by the Israeli occupying regime forces in occupied al-Quds in December 2020.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express outrage at the detentions. In recent months, hundreds of detainees staged hunger strikes and have been refusing to show up for their military court hearings since the beginning of 2022. The boycott includes the initial hearings to uphold the so-called administrative detention order, as well as appeal hearings and later sessions at Israel’s "supreme court."
Palestinian prisoners are held under administrative detention, in which Israel keeps the detainees without charge for up to six months, a period which can be extended an infinite number of times.
The detention takes place on orders from a military commander and on the basis of what the Israeli regime describes as ‘secret’ evidence. Some prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.
Rights groups describe Israel’s use of administrative detention as a “bankrupt tactic” and have long called on Israel to end its use. There are reportedly more than 7,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Human rights organizations say Israel violates all the rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Israeli jail authorities keep Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions without proper hygienic standards. Palestinian inmates have also been subject to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.
The prisoners have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment, and repression all through the years of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
