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Palestinian hunger striker rejects conditional release offer

Israel authorities say troops have shot and killed a Palestinian after he stabbed a guard at a West Bank checkpoint. Arab lawmakers have visited Allan daily in his hospital rooms, first in Beersheba, then Ashkelon. Bring posters and flyers about administrative detention and Palestinian hunger strikers and hold a protest, or join a protest with this important information.

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“We walked up to the (visiting) relatives of the Palestinian prisoners and asked them to send a message to Hamas to free Avraham”, said Eliran Bareket, who is acting as a spokesman for the Mengistu family. The U.S. has admitted to force-feeding detainees at its Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Britain force-fed some Irish Republican Army prisoners on hunger strikes.

In June, Israel released Khader Adnan, 36, a senior activist in Islamic Jihad, after he carried out a 55-day hunger strike to protest his detention.

Many Palestinian prisoners have staged hunger strikes, including those on administrative detention.

Amnesty global issued an urgent action alert encouraging appeals to the Israeli authorities regarding Allan, and the National Lawyers Guild has demanded his release.

“The field execution that the Israeli forces are practicing against the Palestinian youths is an implementation of the Israeli government’s policy based on instructions of incitement”, said the statement.

Rights group Addameer, which defends Palestinian prisoners, said force-feeding a detainee was “immoral” and “harms his dignity and puts his life in danger”.

In a Monday press statement, Qaraqe suggested that hospital officials had sedated and force-fed Allaan intravenously in order to “break his will and end his hunger strike”, which has drawn global media attention and sparked demonstrations both in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The attack enraged Palestinians and sent shock waves through Israeli society, which was horrified by the near certainty that right-wing Jewish extremists were behind the attack.

On Wednesday, some 200 supporters of Allan clashed with Israeli right-wingers near the hospital.

Israel’s Supreme Court, meanwhile, postponed for two days a ruling in the case of a Palestinian hunger-striking prisoner who slipped into unconsciousness last week, after his lawyer petitioned the court to free his client on health grounds.

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“Mohammed decided to go on hunger strike after his administrative detainment was extended for the second time two months ago. He needs to see a psychiatrist”, he said, adding that he had been mentally unstable after the death of his older brother.

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