A/HRC/20/32
another issue generally overlooked in the application of administrative detention, given
standard Israeli arrest procedures: the terrifying secondary impact of night-time arrests on
family members, especially young children. Psychological studies of Palestinian children
12 and under show a disturbingly high correlation between witnessing a parent beaten or
humiliated by Israeli soldiers and the loss by the child of a will to live.
9.
In opposition to administrative detention, several Palestinians have highlighted their
objections to the practice by engaging in dramatic open-ended hunger strikes that have
received widespread international attention from human rights NGOs, public officials, and
public opinion, particularly in the region. It should be comprehended that to embark upon a
hunger strike of long duration is an extreme form of non-violent protest. It has been used on
many past occasions, including famously by Mahatma Gandhi in his struggles against
British imperialism and by a group of Irish Republican Army (IRA) political prisoners in
the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland, in protest against conditions of their confinement. Ten
of these IRA hunger strikers died in prison, with Bobby Sands being the first and most
prominent, an event in 1981 that was later credited with leading the British Government to
change its approach to the IRA, treating it as a political actor rather than an a terrorist
organization. This led, a few years later, to the Good Friday Agreement that established an
enduring, if fragile, accommodation in Northern Ireland. This background is mentioned to
give a political context to the use of hunger strikes as part of the broader Palestinian shift in
tactics from armed resistance to an array of non-violent tactics associated with popular
resistance.
10.
The first of these recent hunger-strike cases involves a Palestinian activist named
Khader Adnan, a baker by profession living in a small village near Jenin and spokesperson
for the political wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who had been previously held in
administrative detention and was imprisoned by West Bank military authorities on eight
separate occasions. Mr. Adnan was arrested at his home at 3 a.m. on 17 December 2011 by
a large number of Israeli soldiers, brusquely handled, cuffed and blindfolded in the
presence of his pregnant wife and two daughters under the age of 5, and taken off roughly
in a military jeep to prison. From the outset of his detention Mr. Adnan commenced a
hunger strike, accompanied by a refusal to speak with interrogators until he was released or
charged, and similar steps taken to end the practice of administrative detention affecting the
hundreds of Palestinians now being held by Israel. Mr. Adnan continued his strike for 66
days, well beyond the time his medical condition was considered to be critical, and despite
this visitors reported that Mr. Adnan had both legs and one arm shackled to the bed even
while under observation in an Israeli prison hospital. After an appeal to a military tribunal
was rejected, on the basis of secret evidence, Mr. Adnan’s lawyers appealed to the Israeli
Supreme Court, but only minutes before court was scheduled to hear arguments, an
agreement was reached in which Mr. Adnan ended his strike and Israel agreed to shorten
his period of detention by calculating the duration of his term on the basis of the day of
arrest rather than the day that his administrative detention was decreed. He was also given
reassurance that his detention would not be extended at the date of expiry absent the
surfacing of substantial new evidence against him. Since Mr. Adnan resumed eating, he has
had various medical difficulties, reported by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, including
surgery to remove an intestinal blockage that was causing great pain. It is not clear whether
Mr. Adnan will recover his full health.
11.
A second recent case involves a young unmarried Palestinian woman named Hana
Shalabi who also lives in a village near Jenin with her family. She had been among those
released in the prisoner exchange on 18 October 2011 that traded 1,027 Palestinians for a
single Israeli military soldier. In the months subsequent to this release she had been living
quietly with her family, gradually recovering from her prison ordeal that had seemed to
render her incapable of normal social interaction, much less militant political activity.
Ms. Shalabi was rearrested on 17 February 2012 leading to an administrative detention
6
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents