Israel frees Palestinian activist after 56-day hunger strike

JERUSALEM, July 12 (UPI) -- A Palestinian man who committed to a 56-day hunger strike while in Israeli captivity was freed on Sunday, according to reports.

Khader Adnan, 37, had for nearly a year been detained under Israel's policy of "administrative detention," which allows authorities to detain suspected militants indefinitely, without presenting evidence, for renewable six-month periods, according to the BBC.

Adnan, an activist with Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, had reportedly been detained by Israel in a wave of Palestinian arrests following the kidnap and murder of three Israeli youths last summer.

He had been arrested by Israel nine times before, CNN reports. His last hunger strike occurred over 66 days between 2011 and 2012.

His release Sunday had been organized when he ended his strike on June 28 following hospitalization and a deal with Israeli authorities. Islamic Jihad reportedly threatened attacks if he died.

Adnan was striking in protest of administrative detention, according to reports.

Last month the Israeli government passed a law permitting doctors to force-feed hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners, prompting contrasting statements of disagreement and approval among lawmakers.

The bill's sponsor, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, said Palestinian prisoners "are interested in turning hunger strike into a new kind of suicide bombing through which they can threaten the state of Israel."

"We won't allow anyone to threaten us, and we won't allow prisoners to die in our prisons," Erdan said.

The Jerusalem Post quoted a statement released on the same day by non-governmental organization Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, which in part read, "Instead of force-feeding prisoners who are humiliated and whose lives are in danger, Israel should deal with the demands of the hunger strikers – through the ending of administrative detentions."

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel likewise condemned the bill, adding that a majority of the hunger-strikers were Palestinians being held on long-term administrative detention, a practice it characterized as "one of the gravest injustices of the military rule in the [Palestinian] territories."

Figures released by Israel's prisons service earlier this month indicated 379 out of a total of 5,719 security prisoners are currently on administrative detention.