Israel agrees release date for hunger striking Palestinian prisoner

Palestinian prisoner Miqdad Al-Qawasmi, has agreed to end his hunger strike which has been ongoing for 113 days as Israeli prison authorities have agreed to release him in February, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.

Director of the Prisoners’ Information Office, Nahid Al-Fakhouri, announced that an agreement had been reached to release Al-Qawasmi after “long and arduous rounds of dialogue waged by the Higher Leadership Committee of Hamas Prisoners.”

Committee head Salama Al-Qatawi, and the body’s foreign affairs official “met the heroic prisoner Miqdad Al-Qawasmi and were assured of his health,” Al-Fakhouri added.

Al-Qawasmi launched a hunger strike in protest of his continued administrative detention – imprisonment without charge or trial – which was renewed last Thursday and he was ordered to be moved from the intensive care unit at Kaplan Hospital to the Ramle Prison Clinic.

Miqdad Al-Qawasmi’s weight has nearly halved since 21 July, when he began refusing food and drinking only water with salt, his family says.

READ: Palestinian hunger striker could die at any minute, family warn