Free Palestinian Hana Shalabi Critical in day 35 of Hunger Strike

Doctors say Palestinian hunger striker is critical
20 March, 2012 – By Diaa Hadid Associated Press – The Daily Star

A Palestinian woman holds a poster of Hana Shalabi who has been on hunger strike for 35 days, during a rally in solidarity with

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: A Palestinian woman who has refused food for the past month to protest her imprisonment by Israel without formal charges is in grave danger of dying, a medical rights group said Tuesday.

Hana Shalabi lost 14 kilograms (31 pounds), her muscles are wasting and she is in excruciating pain, said Ran Cohen of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which has provided her a doctor. She has taken only water since her arrest on Feb. 16.

“We are worried. Her physician has demanded she be transferred to hospital,” said Cohen. Israel Prison Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said that for the time being, Shalabi is being monitored at a prison clinic.

Shalabi, 30, a supporter of the militant Islamic Jihad group, is being held without formal charges, an Israeli system called “administrative detention.” She is scheduled to be released in another three months.

Israeli military officials say they use administrative detention to hold people who pose an immediate risk to the country’s security, or when displaying incriminating evidence would reveal Israeli intelligence-gathering networks.

More than 300 of some 6,000 Palestinians currently held by Israel on security-related charges are in administrative detention. Rights activists say international law allows this practice only in exceptional cases and that Israel blatantly violates these restrictions.

Prison authorities say 20 Palestinian detainees have launched hunger strikes in support of Shalabi in the past two weeks. Earlier this year, administrative detainee Khader Adnan staged a hunger strike for 66 days. He ended the protest after reaching a deal with the Israeli authorities to free him in April.

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