Israel's top court rejects second petition to release Palestinian prisoner Khalil Awawdeh

The Israeli Supreme Court has rejected a second petition to release Khalil Awawdeh, a Palestinian prisoner detained without charge by Israeli forces, on the 171st day of his hunger strike to protest his administrative detention.

The Israeli government, judiciary and military continue to illegally practice administrative detention, according to rights group Adalah, and are consequently endangering Awawdah’s life.

Administrative detention is “incarceration without trial or charge, alleging that a person plans to commit a future offense,” according to B’TSelem’s website, a Jerusalem based human rights organisation.

The systematic violation of the most basic human rights of Palestinians amounts to crimes against humanity, which necessitate immediate international action.

— Adalah (@AdalahEnglish) August 30, 2022

“The systematic violation of the most basic human rights of Palestinians amounts to crimes against humanity, which necessitate immediate international action,” tweeted Adalah on Tuesday. 

A video of Khalil Awawdeh was shared by the Samidoun Network on Twitter on Monday, showing the toll his detention and hunger strike has taken on his body. 

#FreeKhalil Awawdeh, on hunger strike for 180 days resisting Zionist colonialism, has a message to the world, to take action to free the Palestinian prisoners and end administrative detention! pic.twitter.com/f8F36Kuq3I

— Samidoun Network (@SamidounPP) August 29, 2022

“Oh, free people of the world,” Awahdeh said in the video, “this suffering body, of which nothing remains but skin and bones, does not reflect a weakness and vulnerability of the Palestinian people, but rather is a mirror reflecting the true face of the occupation which claims to be a 'democratic state', at a time when it holds a prisoner without any charges in the brutal administrative detention, taking a stand against it, to say: No to administrative detention! No to administrative detention!”

“We are a people who have a just cause that will remain a just cause, and we will always stand against administrative detention, this injustice, even if the skin is gone, even if the bone deteriorates, even if the soul is gone,” he added. 

Awawdeh was detained on 27 December last year near Hebron in the southern West Bank. He has since been abused by prison authorities, and subjected to solitary confinement.

Israeli police have refused multiple requests to end his detention.

Around 650 out of the 4,550 Palestinian political prisoners are being held in Israeli administrative detention without charge or trial, according to the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

Under the administrative detention order, Israel imprisons Palestinians for six months at a time, though this can be extended indefinitely.