On Friday, 28 April, Thaer Halahleh, former long-term hunger striker in Israeli prisons, was seized by occupation forces at a suddenly placed checkpoint near Bethlehem, when his vehicle was stopped by israeli occupation forces.
Halahleh, from the village of Kharas near al-Khalil, was reportedly taken from the car, his hands tied and taken to an as-yet unknown destination, reported Asra Voice, quoting Halahleh’s family.
He has been seized by Israeli occupation forces on multiple occasions and has spent over nine years in Israeli prisons, most of them in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. He was most recently released in October 2016; he had been imprisoned without charge or trial since July 2014.
Halahleh engaged in a 77-day hunger strike in 2012, winning his freedom from administrative detention without charge or trial in June 2012 alongside fellow administrative detainee Bilal Diab. He was arrested again in April 2013 and released in May 2014, before being once again arrested and imprisoned without charge or trial.
Halahleh suffers from Hepatitis C, contracted during a dental operation in Israeli prisons where improper sterilization was used. During his previous imprisonment, Halahleh was denied family visits with his wife and children for seven months, and received only painkillers as treatment for his illness.
On 17 April, 1500 Palestinian prisoners launched a hunger strike for a series of demands, including the right to family visits, appropriate medical care, and the end of administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. Protests throughout occupied Palestine and internationally have grown in support of the strikers, with former prisoners often in the leadership of these events.
