West Bank: Re-Arrested Female Prisoner On Hunger Strike For 11 Days
By Maan
A 29-year-old woman, who was re-arrested by Israeli forces four months after her release from jail in a prisoner swap deal, has been on hunger strike for eleven days, relatives told Ma’an on Saturday.
Hana Shalabi, from the northern West Bank village Burqin, is being held without charge since her detention on Feb. 16.
Her father Yahya Shalabi said she is refusing food to protest her administrative detention, following in the footsteps of Khader Adnan who secured a deal on Tuesday that his detention order would not be renewed after 66 days on hunger strike.
Shalabi, whose brother was killed by Israeli forces in 2005, immediately announced her hunger strike after soldiers seized her from the family’s Jenin-district home.
Her father says soldiers assaulted Hana during the raid and ransacked her parent’s house.
Shalabi was freed in October 2011 when Hamas secured the release of more than 1,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier.
She had spent 25 months in administrative detention, under procedures that allow Israel to detain Palestinians for renewable terms of six months without pressing charges, using laws dating back to the British Mandate period.
Four months later, Shalabi found herself back in jail using the same detention orders. Three other detainees released under the same deal were re-arrested by Israeli forces last week.
Israel is holding 309 Palestinians in administrative detention, according to figures by prisoners rights group Addameer. There are currently six Palestinian woman in Israeli custody.
Lina Jarbouni, from Arraba Al-Batoof, a Palestinian village in the Galilee, has served almost ten years of a 17-year sentence, and Wuroud Al-Qasim, from Palestinian town Tira in Israel has been jailed for five and a half years.
Salwa Abdul-Aziz Hassan from Hebron has been imprisoned since Oct. 19, 2011, Alaa Al-Juaba from Hebron, had been held since Dec. 12, 2011, and Saja Al-Alami from Ramallah, was jailed on Jan. 9, 2012.
