EXPLAINER
Palestinian prisoner Khalil Awawdeh is on a hunger strike demanding Israel end his continued detention without charge.
The case of Palestinian prisoner Khalil Awawdeh was thrust into the spotlight during Israel’s recent bombardment of the blockaded Gaza Strip.
The 40-year-old Awawdeh has been on a continuing hunger strike for more than 160 days in protest at his continued detention by Israel without trial or charge, a process known as “administrative detention”, since his arrest in December 2021.
What is Awawdeh’s current health condition?
- As he nears the sixth month of his hunger strike, Awawdeh is in a critical health condition, weighing 38 kilogrammes (84 pounds).
- Doctors and prisoner rights groups have warned that the father of four from the village of Ithna, in the southern occupied West Bank, could die at any moment.
- A doctor with Physicians for Human Rights, Lina Qasem-Hassan, who visited Awawdeh on August 11, said his life was in immediate danger.
- Qasem-Hassan also said there were signs of neurological damage, including memory and a near-total loss of vision, as well as difficulties concentrating.
Is Awawdeh likely to be released by Israel?
- The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) armed resistance group had demanded that Awawdeh be released as part of the conditions of an August 7 ceasefire agreement that ended Israel’s three-day bombardment of Gaza, in which 49 Palestinians were killed, including 17 children.
- However, Israeli authorities have so far refused to release him, and on Sunday the Israeli Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by his lawyer for his immediate release.
- The PIJ has said that Awawdeh should have been released as part of the August 7 ceasefire deal, as Egypt had promised to work towards his release.
- Israel initially arrested Awawdeh on suspicion of being a PIJ “operative”, an allegation his lawyer has denied.
- “I demand to be released after all this suffering. My hunger strike is like the bleeding of a long injury that has lasted for almost half a year,” Awawdeh told Al Jazeera from the Assaf Harofeh hospital, southeast of Tel Aviv. “Freedom is more valuable than anything else, dignity above everything. We are a nation that will not be defeated. God willing, we will get to our victory or we will die.”
Has Awawdeh been on a hunger strike before?
- Awawdeh has spent a total of 12 years in Israeli prisons since the early 2000s, including…