Dozens of other prisoners were reportedly considering launching their own hunger strikes.
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The forced-feeding bill was approved less than a month after Israel was compelled to release Khader Adnan, a famous former Palestinian prisoner, whose 56-day-long hunger strike brought him to the brink of death.
“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.
Critics say Israel doesn’t enforce the law when it comes to settlers because of the political power they wield in Parliament and because they are still perceived in some circles as Zionist pioneers who are settling the land like the vanguard settlers who established the Jewish state.
The Islamic Jihad describes Allaan as a member of the Islamist movement, as does Israel, which has used administrative detention to hold Palestinians it deems to be security risks while not divulging what the authorities view as sensitive intelligence.
Israel has not formally charged Allan with any crime but alleged that he was involved in “grave terrorism” on behalf of Islamic Jihad, which has threatened attacks against Israel if he dies.
Rights group Addameer, which defends Palestinian prisoners, said force-feeding a detainee was “immoral” and “harms his dignity and puts his life in danger”. “We tried to save him but he died”, he said.
The hospital’s doctors told the Palestinian lawmakers that they were doing their best to save the prisoner, who has refused food for over two months.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, has called force-feeding, even if intended for the patient’s benefit, “tantamount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”.
The protesters arrived in four buses from Jerusalem, Jaffa and northern Israel, and were planning to hold a vigil outside Barzili Hospital, where Allan is now being treated, but were blocked by the police for over half an hour.
Force-feeding requires restraining a conscious and shackled prisoner and inserting a tube into the stomach.
“My brother’s health situation has become more serious during the past few days”, he said.
On 16 June, Allan launched his open-ended, full hunger strike, refusing vitamins, salts and supplements, and consuming only water.
Amany Daiyf of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel argued that if the law is really meant to save Allan’s life, then Israel’s only option is to release him.
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Jameel Khatib, one of his lawyers, rejected the offer of exile, calling instead for his immediate release but also raising the possibility of setting September 23, the start of a Muslim holiday, as a date for freeing him.
