Omar Sadek Kmail, a 50-year-old Palestinian detainee in Israeli jails, continues his hunger strike for the 18th day in a row today in protest of his administrative detention, without charges or trial, by the Israeli occupation authorities. Kmail, a resident of the town of Qabatiya in the occupied West Bank, was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces in March this year, and has been placed under administrative detention for six months ever since. Kmail is the father of a Palestinian martyr, Mahmoud Kmail, who was killed by the Israeli occupation forces in occupied Jerusalem in December 2020. Israel’s widely condemned practice of administrative detention that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing. Amnesty International has described Israel’s use of administrative detention as a ‘bankrupt tactic’ and has long called on Israel to bring its use to an end. Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy, which violates international law. According to the latest figures from Addameer, the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, there are currently 4,900 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 155 children and 32 female prisoners. This number includes 1,014 Palestinians placed under ‘administrative detention’, that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable intervals ranging between three and six months based on undisclosed evidence that even a detainee’s lawyer is barred from viewing.
Source: En – Palestine news & Information Agency – WAFA