Palestinian hunger striker to be released in November

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JERUSALEM (JTA) — Mohammad Allaan, the Palestinian prisoner who went on a 65-day hunger strike this summer, will be released at the end of his current six-month administrative detention — if he refrains from more hunger strikes.

Allaan, 33, will be released on Nov. 4, his attorney told the Palestinian Maan news agency on Tuesday, citing an Israeli military court. Allaan is being held in the clinic of the Ramla jail.

His release is contingent on his refraining from hunger strikes.  

Allaan was released from Israeli administrative detention in August after Israel’s Supreme Court suspended, but did not cancel, his detention order over his declining health due to fasting. It is unclear whether the brain damage Allaan suffered is permanent.

He was jailed again in mid-September after being released from the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, in southern Israel, and restarted his hunger strike, abandoning it after two days due to health concerns.

His hunger strike prompted Israel to pass legislation last month permitting force-feeding. The Israeli Medical Association has said it plans to challenge the law in the Supreme Court and urged physicians not to comply with it. Doctors in two Israeli hospitals refused to perform tests on and provide nutrition to Allaan without his consent.

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