Israel was holding Allan, an Islamic Jihad affiliate, under so-called administrative detention, a practice it says is a vital security measure and which Palestinians and rights groups oppose. After Allan emerged from a medically induced coma on Tuesday, the Palestinian Prisoners Club, which has been championing his case, said he had warned he would step up his hunger strike by not drinking water if Israel did not resolve his case within 24 hours.
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He said Allan would be administered the substances his body is missing.
More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly incarcerated in 17 Israeli prisons and detention centers, many of them without charge or trial.
Allan’s case became a litmus test for a law that was narrowly passed in July that permits a judge to sanction force-feeding of a fasting prisoner if the inmate’s life is in danger.
The new law has been criticized both inside and outside the country.
Such detention orders are in defiance of the 1978 United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/33/24 that reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of all peoples for “liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle”. And the Israeli Medical Association has called force-feeding “equivalent to torture”, urging Israeli doctors not to comply. There was no immediate confirmation from the Israeli authorities.
Allan’s legal team had dismissed an Israeli offer to release Allan on the condition of expelling him for four years overseas.
There are fears of violence escalating if Allan dies from his hunger strike, and there have been clashes between his Israeli Arab and Palestinian supporters and Jewish opponents near the Israeli hospital where he is being held under guard. Allaan’s attorney tried to communicate with him Wednesday but was unsuccessful because of his poor condition.
Nearly every day, Palestinians have held solidarity protests outside the hospital in Ashkelon.
Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman told the UN Security Council that the past month has seen “unconscionable crimes of hatred by extremist elements, reprehensible retaliatory violence, provocations at Jerusalem’s holy sites, and a worrying increase in rockets launched from Gaza towards Israel“. It also said his “administrative detention” is suspended.
Top UN officials in the occupied Palestinian territory voiced their grave concern over the demolitions by the Israeli Civil Administration in vulnerable Palestinian Bedouin refugee communities in Area C, near East Jerusalem, a UN spokesperson told reporters here Tuesday.
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One of Mr Allan’s lawyers, Kamal Natur, said he would recommend accepting it.
