Muhammad Allan on hunger strike for over 20 days; Anas Shadid ordered once more to administrative detention

Palestinian lawyer Muhammad Allan is on his 21st day of hunger strike, demanding his immediate release from Israeli prison. Allan, 33, previously engaged in a 65-day hunger strike to win his freedom from administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial, winning his release in 2015.

Allan was seized once more by Israeli occupation forces on 8 June who invaded his home in the village of Einabus near Nablus, and he once again launched a hunger strike to demand his release. He was held in the Jalameh/Ketziot interrogation center before being transferred to the isolation cells in Megiddo prison after news of his hunger strike spread.

Prior to his hunger strike, he spent three years in Israeli prison, accused of affiliation with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. He was again arrested in 2014 and ordered to imprisonment without charge or trial; in 2015, he conducted his hunger strike to win his release in November 2015.

Meanwhile, fellow former long-term hunger striker Anas Shadid, 21, from the village of Dura near al-Khalil, was once again ordered to administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. Shadid conducted a 90-day hunger strike alongside Anas Abu Fara to win his release from imprisonment without charge or trial and was released on 24 May 2017.

Only 20 days later, Israeli occupation forces raided his family home in a pre-dawn raid on 15 June after he had earlier been summoned to interrogation by Israeli occupation forces. Now, Shadid has once again been ordered to six months of imprisonment without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges action and solidarity to free Muhammad Allan, Anas Shadid and end the arbitrary detention of Palestinians without charge or trial under administrative detention. International protest is critical to demand the freedom of nearly 500 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial and all 6,500 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.