Three Palestinian prisoners imprisoned at Ofer Detention Centre, southwest of occupied Ramallah, launched an open-ended hunger strike to protest against their administrative detention, reported the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

The Prisoners Affairs Commission announced that Maher Al-Akhras, Mohammad Wahdan, and Musa Zahran, are under administrative detention, a system that allows Israeli authorities to arrest and hold people without charge for prolonged periods.

Al-Akhras, a 49-year-old father of six children from Silat Ad-Daher town, south of Jenin, has been on hunger strike for 25 consecutive days.

He is currently in a critical condition, having been diagnosed with hypertension in 2018, and now suffering from significant weight loss.

Meanwhile, Wahdan, a resident of Rantis village, northwest of Ramallah, has been on a hunger strike for 16 days in a row. He started his strike while he was in custody in the Israeli detention facility of Huwara, south of Nablus, before being transferred to Ofer.

Zahran, a resident of Ramallah, has been on a hunger strike for five consecutive days. Two days after beginning his strike, he was placed in solitary confinement.

“Administrative detention is Israel’s go-to legal proceeding when it simply wants to mute the voices of Palestinian political activists, but lacks any concrete evidence that can be presented in an open, military court,” wrote Palestinian journalist and editor of The Palestine Chronicle, Ramzy Baroud.

“Not that Israel’s military courts are an example of fairness and transparency. Indeed, when it comes to Palestinians, the entire Israeli judicial system is skewed. But administrative detention is a whole new level of injustice,” Baroud added.

(Palestine Chronicle, MEMO, Social Media)