Nearly three months without food, as Israel looks away

Palestinians hold posters of jailed Palestinian football player Mahmud Sarsak and prisoner Akram Rikhawi during a rally in Gaza City (Getty Images)

Akram Rikhawi, one of many Palestinian political prisoners said to be held by the Israeli government, without charge and without seeing a trial, today will enter his 64th day on hunger strike. 64 days without food. As he does, 25 year old former Palestinian national team footballer Mahmoud Sarsak enters his 88th day on hunger strike, the longest any detainee has gone through such an ordeal in an Israeli jail. That’s nearly 3 months without food.

Once a star athlete and now according to physicians, having lost 33 percent of his body weight, Sarsak has been detained since 2009, but without having seen any judicial proceedings. It’s also nearly 3 years since he saw any family members. Sarsak is from the village of Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza strip. Having seen no trial, instead, for Sarsak, he has been subjected to a continued process of administrative detention, which the state has the discretion to continue indefinitely, but which has no legal precedent according to international law. It’s what led him to begin a hunger strike in the first place. Now both mens’ health is in dire condition.  Their defiance and steadfastness in the face of such brutal and psychological oppression may ignite another mass hunger strike similar to the one which came to an end last month. Such is the seriousness of the situation facing the men, that when Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations, upon visiting the men last week, issued a statement calling for immediate international intervention in order to save the men.

After Sarsak’s condition deteriorated rapidly at the weekend, it was reported yesterday that he had agreed to take milk upon advice from his lawyer Mohammad Jabarein, to keep him alive until at least today when a judicial review is due to take place.  According to Jabarein “The 25-year-old prisoner has decided that if the Supreme Court does not agree to release him he will refuse all supplements until his death”.
While most of the Football World is focusing on the European competition right now, there have been some statements of support for Mahmoud Sarsak at least.  This week footballing icon Eric Cantona and head of Fifa Sepp Blatter sent a letter Uefa’s Michel Platini reportedly signed by other individuals including Noam Chomsky and Michael Mansfield QC, making clear their support for Sarsak calling for his release.

But it is hard to imagine the same outpouring of sympathy for Sarsak, or any of the hunger strikers, equal to the outpouring of concern that was shown when footballer Patrice Muamba’s life hung in the balance recently following his collapse on the pitch. If these alleged human rights abuses were taking place anywhere else there would simply be a greater level of attention paid to them. It is not hard to see what evokes such desperation.

In addition to the physical occupation the Palestinians live with, the daily indignations, and the deeply ingrained psychological scars that such injustices leave, some 2,000 prisoners, according to Palestinian prisoners’ rights group Addameer, are held as administrative detainees without a chance of trial.  Many have been held for months and some years.  Those detained under administrative detention acted collectively in recent weeks in what became one of the biggest acts of mass protest in recent memory.

The strike came to an end, after Israel signed an agreement, which many believed would finally see the end of many of the abuses caused by administrative detention, in particular prolonged isolation for prisoners. Just weeks later and there have already been several instances which, on the contrary, include approximately 30 administrative detention orders being renewed,  according to an Amnesty report. This apparent hypocrisy and that which characterises administrative detention, stemming from wider Israeli policy, is merely one of many tactics employed.

Palestinians are treated as second class citizens in their own land, and labelled as terrorists while the colonial power that dictates and governs their lives, is accused of committing real crimes- unchallenged. When viewed in this context it is clear that while the international community, remain complicit by their non action and apathy, occasionally verbally calling out the Israeli government for its human rights breaches, the Israeli government continues with its systematic use of oppression.

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• ricardo lion

  The State of Israel don’t give a xxxx about you.

• ricardo lion

  “Palestinians” are Arabs, just like those you killed by thousands in Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, Iraq again and Libya.
  And how many men holding old Kalashnikovs, women and children killed by your professional soldiers (killing for money) and Gurkha mercenaries (no mercenaries in the IDF) in Afghanistan today?

• ricardo lion

  “…BY GOD”. Wich one. The God from the Bible, the God of Israel, the One Jesus called Father? Or the one invented by Arab Mohamed?

• stickytruth2

  What a short memory, no mention of the Stern Gang, and what do you think Gulf War I & II was about, not oil, but to safegueard Israel, just to remind what Ariel Shannon said, “No country in the ME shall have nuclear power/arms, therefore, Israel can use your nuclear warheads as a threat to all concerned.

• BobMex

  Posibly because Israel doesn’t have any declared borders.
  I would love the UK to give the Malvinas back to Argentina.

  Subject: [independentblogs] Re: Mahmoud Sarsak: Nearly three months without food, and a third of his body weight lost

• BobMex

  I agree completely.

  Subject: [independentblogs] Re: Mahmoud Sarsak: Nearly three months without food, and a third of his body weight lost

• Guest

  Oh my you can’t say anything bad about darling Israel! Or you’ll be met by the frothing Zionist gang (usually Islamophobic Americans).