The Israeli occupation court on Monday rejected a request for the release of Palestinian prisoner Khalil Awawda, who has been on hunger strike for 156 days, in protest against his administrative detention.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club said in a statement, “The Ofer Military Court rejected the appeal of detainee Khalil Awawda,” and stated that “he is currently staying in the Israeli Assaf Harofeh Hospital, suffering from a critical health condition.”
Administrative detention is a decision to imprison by an Israeli military order, alleging the existence of a secret file for the detainee, without filing an indictment, and extends to six months, which can be extended several times.
Awawda’s name was mentioned in the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, which was concluded on the evening of August 7, ending three days of Israeli occupation raids on the Strip.
Daoud Shehab, a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad Movement, revealed to Anadolu Agency that the agreement with the occupation on a ceasefire was brokered by Egypt, after “Israel promised Cairo to work on releasing the two prisoners, Awawda and the movement’s leader, Bassam Al-Saadi.”
In May 2022, the occupation court rejected the Palestinian prisoner’s petition, despite his very serious health condition, as he suffered from severe joint aches, head pain, severe dizziness and blurred vision, and was unable to walk and move in a wheelchair.
The occupation detention administration deliberately transferred Awawda repeatedly to civilian hospitals, claiming that medical examinations were conducted for him, and that he returned each time without conducting them, on the pretext that he had not reached the stage of danger.
Dalal Awawda, the prisoner’s wife, said that during her last visit to her husband, “I found him a skeleton with prominent eyes, a belly like a pit, and two legs made of bones covered with leather.”
Dalal Awawda added in an interview with Arabic daily Al-Jazeera Mubasher on Saturday, that the deputy director of the hospital assured her that “the vital internal functions of her husband are no longer able to continue, and that he is threatened with death at any moment.”
