Palestinian detainee ends 27-day hunger strike after prison transfer

A Palestinian prisoner has ended his hunger strike after Israeli authorities agreed to move him to a different location, according to the Prisoners Affairs Commission (PAC).

Samer Issawi, who was on hunger strike for the past 27 days for being placed in solitary confinement, agreed on Friday to end his strike after the Israeli Prison Service agreed to transfer him from his current detention at the Rimon prison to the Naqab (Negev) prison.

تغطية صحفية| هيئة الأسرى: "الأسير سامر العيساوي يعلق إضرابه عن الطعام الذي استمر لـ27 يوماً". pic.twitter.com/7xkpbJSIqF

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) November 25, 2022

Spokesperson for the PAC, Hassan Abed-Rabbu, explained that Issawi started his hunger strike in solidarity with the families of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, whose bodies are still being held by them.

As a result of this, he was transferred to the Rimon prison.

Issawi, a resident of East Jerusalem, was initially detained in 2003 and sentenced to 30 years behind bars. He was released in a prisoner swap deal in 2011 but was arrested again the following year, according to Palestinian news agency WAFA.

He began a hunger strike for nine months before being freed in December 2013, but was detained yet again in June 2014, WAFA reported.

There are currently 4,700 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 190 children and 30 female prisoners, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer.

In a separate incident, an undercover Israeli force abducted a Palestinian teenager Thursday evening in Bethlehem, south of the occupied West Bank, according to WAFA which quoted Palestinian security sources.

Authorities raided a barbershop in the city’s Al-Doha neighbourhood and took away Omar Kawar, 20, to an undisclosed location.

The reasons for his arrest were not clear.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed, wounded or arrested since the beginning of this year as the West Bank and East Jerusalem – both of which Israel annexed in the 1967 Mideast War – have seen a spike in violence.