Palestinian Groups Call for Sit-In Protests in Support of Maher al-Akhras
Akhras is Palestinian man held without charge by Israel who is in critical condition following a hunger strike of more than 70 days.
In a statement, the groups urged Palestinians to hold sit-ins in front of the offices of the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross to demand the release of Palestinian prisoners.
They also condemned the Zionist regime’s insistence on keeping hundreds of Palestinian women, children and elderly in jail despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Last week, a number of Palestinians in Israeli jails threatened to go on a hunger strike in support of al-Akhras.
Akhras, 49, began his hunger strike after he was arrested and placed into administrative detention in late July.
Administrative detention is a policy that the Israeli regime uses to detain suspects without filing charges, sometimes for months at a time with multiple extensions.
Al-Akhras’s wife, Taghreed, told AP earlier this week that her husband has survived on water alone while he demands his release. Speaking from his room at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, she said that al-Akhras has been hospitalized since September 6 and that he was too weak to speak or get up to go to the toilet.
“He lost half of his weight. He suffers spasms,” she said. “He has a constant strong headache and constant buzzing in the ears, fatigue, with no energy to talk to me.”
Palestinians on Saturday called on international human rights groups to urgently put pressure on the Israeli authorities to save the life of Akhras.
The call came in a sit-in organized by the Islamic Jihad Movement in the cities of Gaza and Rafah in solidarity with al-Akhras.
n a speech during the Gaza pause, Khaled Al-Batsh, the leader of the movement, said: "We warn the occupation [Israel] against harming the life of the detainee al-Akhras and we hold them [Israel] responsible if something unfortunate happens to him."
Some 5,000 Palestinian political detainees are languishing in Israeli jails, including 43 women, 180 children, and 430 detainees under the administrative detention.
