Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, who was a political prisoner in the former Soviet Union, spoke on Monday to Army Radio about his ordeal in the USSR after Israel’s High Court of Justice approved the forced feeding of prisoners who go on hunger strike in Israeli jails. In its ruling Sunday, the court said the law ensures medical and legal oversight.
Advertisement
The Israel Medical Association also declared that it would continue to instruct doctors to disobey the law and any orders to implement it.
In a unanimous decision by a three-justice panel, the Israeli High Court on Sunday approved the legality of the force-feeding law, which was enacted by the Knesset in July 2015.
The country’s top justices ruled that laws dealing with patients’ rights did not apply to hunger-strikers because they were deemed “not an ordinary patient but a person who knowingly and willingly places himself in a unsafe situation”.
Israel says the controversial practice allows authorities to hold suspects while continuing to gather evidence, while Palestinians, rights groups and members of the worldwide community have condemned the system.
Of more than 7,500 Palestinians now in Israeli jails, about 700 are being held in administrative detention, according to Palestinian rights groups.
Tamar Zandberg, a member of the Israeli parliament with the leftist Zionist Meretz party, called the law “cruel, immoral [and] unethical” and said it would not be implemented by any doctor.
The law was created to end what the Israeli authorities consider to be blackmail by Palestinian prisoners for whom hunger strikes are a commonly used tactic. The law is meant to be defiant and intimidating, not to be enacted in practice. Once their condition deteriorates severely, their administrative detention is typically cancelled, but many are re-arrested once their condition improves.
However, in January, a medical team at the civilian HaEmek hospital, forcibly treated Muhammad al-Qiq with an IV administering minerals and salts after almost two months on hunger strike.
Al-Qadi, who slipped into a coma on September 10, is said to have committed himself to continuing the hunger strike until he is released from Israeli detention. Brothers Mahmud and Muhamad Baloul began to refuse food on July 4 and 7 respectively.
Advertisement
However, due to Mahmoud’s fragile state of health, he remained asleep during her visit.
