Hunger-striking prisoner briefly enters coma

A Palestinian hunger-striking prisoner has briefly entered into a coma while a fellow inmate also refusing food remains in critical condition.

Ahmad Abu Farah, 29, who has been on hunger strike for 73 days, lost consciousness for several minutes, the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs said on Sunday.

The committee added Abu Farah and Anas Shadid, 20, could pass away at any minute as they have, respectively.

The committee had said last month that both had slipped into a coma and have partially or completely lost their power to breathe, hear, speak and drink.

The committee warned that Israeli authorities had threatened to force feed both hunger strikers.

Force feeding amounts to torture, according to legal experts.

Both inmates, who are residents of the southern occupied West Bank village of Dura, have been on hunger strike in protest at their administrative detentions.

Many Palestinian inmates have launched hunger strikes in the past year to protest the controversial administrative detention as well as their mistreatment in Israeli jails.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Center for Studies (PPCS) said on Sunday that 32 Palestinian inmates who were suffering from different physical disabilities have been denied suitable medical care by Israeli prison officials.

PPCS spokesperson Riyad al-Ashqar said in a statement that Israel Prison Service officials routinely neglect disabled and injured Palestinian prisoners and do not provide them with basic and necessary equipment such as wheelchairs.

In the statement, Ashqar cited several names of Palestinian prisoners who were tortured during interrogation, leading to their incurable physical and mental disabilities.

Ashqar called on international human rights organizations to probe the matter and exert pressure on Israeli officials to release Palestinian prisoners suffering from physical and psychological disabilities.

The Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs confirmed last month that “there is a deliberate policy of medical negligence against injured and sick Palestinian prisoners.”

According to the group, since the beginning of the Second Intifada (Uprising) in 2000 until 2008, 17 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli jails, adding that in 2014, the number of ill inmates in Israeli prisons had increased to over 1,000 as a result of medical negligence.

Israeli raids in West Bank

In another development on Monday, Palestinian Safa news agency reported that Israeli force raided several homes and areas in the occupied West Bank on Monday, clashing with stone-throwing Palestinian youths and arresting over a dozen people.

The Arabic-language agency reported that Israeli forces entered the town of Qabatiya, located six kilometers south of Jenin, in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli forces occupied the city center and used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse protesters.

The Israeli forces also raided homes in Bethlehem and arrested a Palestinian there.

Israeli forces regularly carry out raids in Palestinian territories, terrorizing the residents and intimidating them by destroying their properties and making arrests.