Palestinian on hunger strike in Israeli is "man in danger"

Feb 9, 2012, 9:32 GMT

Tel Aviv - A Palestinian who has been on hunger strike in Israel to protest his detention without trial has entered a critical stage after 54 days without food, a human rights group warned Thursday.

Khader Adnan, a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad organization, was detained in mid-December and placed under administrative detention. The measure allows Israeli authorities to detain people deemed a security risk for six months or longer.

By World Medical Association standards, 'after 55 days, a man is in danger,' Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) spokeswoman Yael Maron told dpa.

A PHRI doctor was on Wednesday granted access to the 34-year-old, who has refused to be examined by other Israeli doctors. But according to Maron, the examination was 'not full' because Adnan is shackled to a bed at Ziv hospital in the northern town of Safed.

Maron said the prisoner was 'barely able to lift his head, very weak,' and therefore not a flight risk.

She declined however to give further details of his condition, citing medical confidentiality. A hospital spokesman also declined to comment.

Authorities should present evidence that Adnan, whose hunger strike is thought to be the longest ever by a Palestinian prisoner in Israel, is planning attacks to a court if it has any, Maron said.