A native of the West Bank town of Yabad, Amarneh began the protest last Sunday in rejection of his administrative detention, according to the official WAFA news agency. His brother Hassan Amarneh alerted WAFA that his relative’s health condition is difficult because he suffers from several diseases such as ulcers in the stomach and intestines, high blood pressure and a tumor in one leg.

According to the news source, Ahmed and Mujahid, two of his sons, are also imprisoned.

Administrative detention is a standard used by Israel to arrest Palestinians for renewable intervals usually ranging from three to six months on the basis of undisclosed evidence, which even the defendant’s lawyer is restricted from seeing.

Many detainees held under this measure systematically go on indefinite hunger strikes to denounce their cases and force the Israeli authorities to release them.

Palestinians and human rights groups denounce that administrative detention violates due process because it allows prisoners to withhold evidence while they are held for long periods without being charged, tried or convicted.

The decision to place a Palestinian under administrative detention is made by the regional military commander without indictment or trial, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories recently said.

That NGO criticized the facade of judicial review of administrative detention orders because “in such hearings, detainees merely play the role of figureheads in a process designed to sanction their imprisonment.”

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