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

Feb 9, 2012, 14:15 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 held in mid-December and placed under administrative detention. The measure allows the authorities to detain people deemed a security risk for six months or longer.

His ongoing hunger strike is thought to be the longest-ever by a Palestinian prisoner in Israel.

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

'He is determined to continue his hunger strike,' she told dpa.

A PHRI doctor was on Wednesday granted access to the 33-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 and a hospital spokesman declined to give further details of his condition, citing medical confidentiality.

An Israel Prison Service spokeswoman, Sivan Weizman, would not answer questions on why Adnan was chained to his bed and not allowed more frequent visits by PHRI doctors.

She said in addition to a specially authorized family meeting, he has been visited by a Muslim religious figure and representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Prison authorities so far had not forced any medical activity against his will, she said.

PHRI said the detainee's wife, Randa, and two daughters visited him in the northern Israeli hospital this week.

Authorities should present evidence that Adnan is planning attacks to a court if it has any, Maron said.