Falcon29
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Hour by hour, a hunger striking Palestinian journalist starves to death in Israeli custody
Inside the hospital room where Mohammed al-Qiq is on hunger strike in protest at his detention without charge by Israel
Mohammed al-Qiq is in constant pain after 86 days without food
....
Mohammed al-Qiq looks like almost like a child as he curls up beneath a blanket on his hospital bed.
A man who once weighed 200lbs is now just half that. His yellowing eyes are sunken in his gaunt face and once-powerful forearms are thin and brittle.
On his bedside table is a copy of the Quran that he can no longer read and a plastic cup of water he can no longer lift. Sips of water are the only nourishment to have passed his lips in 86 days.
The Palestinian journalist is on hunger strike in protest at his detention by Israel. He was arrested in late November by Israeli troops who burst into his Ramallah home at three in the morning.
His two young children slept through the raid but they had questions in the morning. Where was their father? And why was the door hanging shattered off its hinges?
The 33-year-old was held under “administrative detention”, a legal legacy of British rule in Palestine which allows Israeli authorities to hold terror suspects for six-month periods without charging them or presenting evidence against them.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s equivalent of MI5, has said only that Mr al-Qiq was involved in “terror activities”. Evidence presented in secret to the Israeli Supreme Court convinced the judges that the journalist, who is also a supporter of Hamas, was indeed a threat to national security.
But Mr al-Qiq’s withering body is now itself a challenge to the Israeli security state. He stopped eating on November 25 in protest at his administrative detention and demanded that Israel either charge him or release him.
The Supreme Court has instead left him in legal limbo. Earlier this month it suspended the administrative detention but forbid him from going free.
Two armed policemen sit in the hallway outside his room in the Haemek Hospital in Afula, a city in northern Israel. Authorities have ordered the windows shut, as if a man on the verge of organ failure might leap from his bed and scale down the side of the building.
.............
Israel still has one card to play. Last summer the Israeli Knesset passed a law that gives authorities the power to force feed prisoners in order to break a hunger strike. Force feeding is widely considered to be torture and so far Israel has never invoked the law.
Late on Monday night Mr al-Qiq began to writhe and contort in pain. His eyes rolled backwards into his head and his fingers clawed at his chest.
“We thought that was the end of him,” said Muhammad Kanaaneh, a Palestinian activist who has been staying at his bedside in ten-hour shifts. Mr Kanaaneh had never met the hunger-striker but now sits with him and lays a cool cloth on his forehead to try to ease his suffering.
“His family is in Hebron and cannot come to see him. So we are here to help him and to be his family,” he said.
...........
Hour by hour, a hunger striking Palestinian journalist starves to death in Israeli custody - Telegraph
Inside the hospital room where Mohammed al-Qiq is on hunger strike in protest at his detention without charge by Israel
Mohammed al-Qiq is in constant pain after 86 days without food
....
Mohammed al-Qiq looks like almost like a child as he curls up beneath a blanket on his hospital bed.
A man who once weighed 200lbs is now just half that. His yellowing eyes are sunken in his gaunt face and once-powerful forearms are thin and brittle.
On his bedside table is a copy of the Quran that he can no longer read and a plastic cup of water he can no longer lift. Sips of water are the only nourishment to have passed his lips in 86 days.
The Palestinian journalist is on hunger strike in protest at his detention by Israel. He was arrested in late November by Israeli troops who burst into his Ramallah home at three in the morning.
His two young children slept through the raid but they had questions in the morning. Where was their father? And why was the door hanging shattered off its hinges?
The 33-year-old was held under “administrative detention”, a legal legacy of British rule in Palestine which allows Israeli authorities to hold terror suspects for six-month periods without charging them or presenting evidence against them.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s equivalent of MI5, has said only that Mr al-Qiq was involved in “terror activities”. Evidence presented in secret to the Israeli Supreme Court convinced the judges that the journalist, who is also a supporter of Hamas, was indeed a threat to national security.
But Mr al-Qiq’s withering body is now itself a challenge to the Israeli security state. He stopped eating on November 25 in protest at his administrative detention and demanded that Israel either charge him or release him.
The Supreme Court has instead left him in legal limbo. Earlier this month it suspended the administrative detention but forbid him from going free.
Two armed policemen sit in the hallway outside his room in the Haemek Hospital in Afula, a city in northern Israel. Authorities have ordered the windows shut, as if a man on the verge of organ failure might leap from his bed and scale down the side of the building.
.............
Israel still has one card to play. Last summer the Israeli Knesset passed a law that gives authorities the power to force feed prisoners in order to break a hunger strike. Force feeding is widely considered to be torture and so far Israel has never invoked the law.
Late on Monday night Mr al-Qiq began to writhe and contort in pain. His eyes rolled backwards into his head and his fingers clawed at his chest.
“We thought that was the end of him,” said Muhammad Kanaaneh, a Palestinian activist who has been staying at his bedside in ten-hour shifts. Mr Kanaaneh had never met the hunger-striker but now sits with him and lays a cool cloth on his forehead to try to ease his suffering.
“His family is in Hebron and cannot come to see him. So we are here to help him and to be his family,” he said.
...........
Hour by hour, a hunger striking Palestinian journalist starves to death in Israeli custody - Telegraph
