Palestinians call for international intervention as prisoner Al-Akhras spends 102 days on hunger strike

The Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs (CDA) has called on the international community to intervene in the case of Palestinian detainee Maher Al-Akhras, who has now been on hunger strike for 102 days.

Forty-nine-year-old Al-Akhras was arrested in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in July, and has since been detained without charge. He has been described as “close to death”

Al-Akhras went on hunger strike to protest Israel’s policy of administrative detention, which allows it to hold Palestinian detainees indefinitely without charge.

The CDA said on Facebook that it had written letters to the UN Secretary-General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and to the foreign ministers of China, Russia, and the European calling them to immediately intervene in Al-Akhras’s case.

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It also said that there were currently 350 administrative detainees in Israeli jails, three of whom were on hunger strike in solidarity with Al-Akhras.

Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups have repeatedly called on Israel to release Al-Akhras and other administrative detainees.

Israel says it suspects Al-Akhras, a married father of six, of links to the Palestinian armed group Islamic Jihad.

The UN’s special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, Michael Lynk, warned last week that Al-Akhras was in a “very frail condition” and was “on the verge of suffering major organ failure”, some of which may be permanent.

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