Israel to release Palestinian hunger striker Allan

Palestinian hunger striker Mohammed Allan will be released after an Israeli High Court announced that it suspended the administrative detention order in place against him, the Anadolu Agency reported yesterday.

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Israeli Judge Elyakim Rubinstein saying: “He [Allan] does not pose a danger because of his medical condition, and so the administrative order is not active now.”

Rubinstein added that relatives and associates could now visit Allan, subject to normal hospital guidelines.

Hassan Abed-Rabbu, information advisor for the PLO’s Prisoners and Freed Prisoners Committee, described the decision a “defeat for the Israeli institution.”

Head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club Qaddoura Fares said that Allan is to remain in hospital because of his life threatening medical condition.

Hamas leader in the occupied West Bank, Hassan Yousef, said: “The release is a victory for Allan and a defeat for the Israeli occupation.”

Yousef added that the world should feel “ashamed” and recognise that Israel is “wasting the lives of Palestinians for no reason.”

Meanwhile, an Israeli Likud member described the release as “submission to terror”, describing administrative detentions part of the fight against terrorism.

Allan, 31, is a lawyer from the occupied West Bank and member of the Palestinian Bar Association. He was arrested by Israeli authorities last November.

On 18 June he began a hunger strike in protest against his “administrative detention”, which allows suspects to be held without charge or trial indefinitely.