Middle East Monitor / September 21, 2022
Israeli occupation forces rearrested former detainee, Hisham Abu Hawash, during a massive arrest campaign last night in a number of cities and towns across the occupied West Bank.
According to The Times of Israel, Abu Hawash was among the 13 Palestinians arrested on the pretext that they are wanted by Israeli forces.
Overnight raids by the Israeli army are a near daily practice in the occupied West Bank. Israel claims that they are essential for intelligence purposes, but rights groups have slammed the practice, insisting that the goal is to oppress and intimidate the Palestinian population and increase state control.
Like military checkpoints and the illegal Separation Wall, insist critics, the raids are part of the DNA of the Apartheid State.
Father of five Abu Hawash, 40, from the town of Dura, west of Hebron city in the south of the West Bank was arrested in October 2020 and went on hunger strike for 141 days in protest of being held under administrative detention – without charge or trial.
During his detention, he was hospitalized but refused medical treatment. After days of protests by Palestinians calling for his release, and mounting fears in Israel of widespread unrest if he died in custody, the Israeli government yielded on 5 January and agreed to release him in February. He then ended his hunger strike.
Israel detains about 4,500 Palestinians, including about 500 prisoners in administrative detention, an Israeli procedure that allows the Israeli authorities to hold a person without charge for renewable periods of six months.
