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Israel Releases Palestinian Hunger Striker

“After studying the medical report there was a long session, and starting now Allaan is released, the administrative detention is over”, Allaan’s lawyer said after a court session on Wednesday.

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Mr Allan (31), a West Bank lawyer and member of the Islamic Jihad, stopped taking food on June 16th.

“Due to the petitioner’s medical condition he will remain in intensive care”, the court ruling said.

For now, the odds of bringing Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu together for a meeting – much less restarting peace talks – appear virtually nonexistent.

Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Allan’s case this afternoon.

Allaan’s case spurred Israeli lawmakers to pass a law last month legalizing the force-feeding of prisoners.

Israel has offered to free Mohammed Allaan, a Palestinian prisoner on a hunger strike, in November, should he end his strike.

The Israeli justice ministry has alleged that Mr Allan is involved in “grave terrorism”. At a hearing on Monday, one of the doctors treating Allan said if he were to resume his hunger strike, his health is going to radically deteriorate.

While in the coma for several days, Allaan received water and salts intravenously, and was connected to a respirator.

I do not know at the moment if the damage is completely reversible, to what extent or when”, he said.

Allan now remains at Barzilai hospital, Ashqelon, where his family is able to visit. Allan’s lawyers argued his condition negated the authorities’ stance that he posed a danger.

Addressing the Security Council on Wednesday, UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman said the United Nations has consistently opposed the “use of prolonged administrative detention”.

Israel’s security cabinet on August 2 extended to its own citizens so-called “administrative detention”, a practice commonly applied to Palestinian militant suspects and condemned internationally.

In July, Israel released the Palestinian administrative detainee Khader Adnan following a hunger strike lasting more than 50 days that endangered his life.

The hearing came as tensions rose in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with a Palestinian shot dead during an attempt to stab a border policeman in the fourth such incident in little more than a week. Last month, it took the rare step of placing three young Israeli ultranationalists in administrative detention as part of a crackdown on Jewish extremism. Odeh, from the West Bank village of Ainabus, had slept in the hospital for the past week but said she saw her son for only 15 minutes.

But while they are concerned with potential unrest, Israeli authorities are also reluctant to be seen as giving in to what they view as “blackmail” by detainees.

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Israeli Prosecution Wednesday morning offered to release hunger-striking detainee Mohammad ‘Allan when the period of his current illegal detention without charge or trial, expires early November.

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