APAwire - APAwire CLIENTS ONLY, Ramallah – 09 July 2021. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtayeh visits Ghazanfar Abu Atwan, a Palestinian man who was released from Israeli detention at a hospital near the city of Ramallah in the West Bank.
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Arrested ten months ago, Abu Atwan has been held without charge or trial under Israel's "administrative detention" mechanism, in which the Israeli government has no obligation to present any official suspicions or evidence to justify an arrest or detention.
Earlier on Thursday, Abu Atwan's lawyer requested that he be moved from Israel’s Kaplan Hospital to a Palestinian facility, given his deteriorating condition.
The 28-year-old has gone without food, including vitamins and supplements, since 5 May, and on 3 July began refusing to drink water.
Abu Atwan’s administrative detention was recently suspended by Israel’s Supreme Court due to his dire health condition, but the court's ruling had left him "sick and captive in the hospital", Boulos told the Associated Press earlier on Thursday.
Last week, Abu Atwan's family said that he now "looks like a ghost of himself" due to his deteriorating health.
Medical records dated 7 July described him as "noticeably weak, almost unable to speak" and unable to move his lower limbs.
The subject of activists' human rights campaigns, Abu Atwan is one of 520 Palestinians being held in Israeli military jails without charge or trial, according to Palestinian prisoner rights group, Addameer.
Palestinians being imprisoned under administrative detention can be held for six-month periods that can be renewed indefinitely.
Hunger strikes are often used by Palestinian prisoners as the only tool to protest such extrajudicial detention.
Footage by PMO/APAwire