A Palestinian detained by Israel for his alleged membership in a militant group has ended his hunger strike after over 100 days, his wife said Friday.
Taghrid al-Akhras told AFP that her husband, Maher al-Akhras, has “stopped his hunger strike after 103 days.”
In a phone conversation from Kaplan hospital in Rehovot, an Israeli city south of Tel Aviv where her husband was being treated, she said she was “happy” over the decision, but still “concerned” given his severe medical condition.
Akhras, 49, was arrested near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus in July and put in administrative detention, a policy that Israel uses to hold suspected militants without charge.
He is suspected of links to the armed Palestinian group Islamic Jihad.
The father of six launched his fast to protest a four-month detention order, which is due to end on November 26.
In October 2020, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a press release, calling on Israel to release al-Akhras, and to “end its practice of administrative detention, under which people can be held indefinitely without trial, sometimes for years.”
According to the Palestinian Prisoner Club, Akhras ended his hunger strike after Israeli authorities committed to not extending his detention beyond that date.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency could not confirm any such agreement.
Five members of the Israeli parliament from the Joint Arab List who were visiting Ahkras in his hospital room broadcast the announcement to end the hunger strike live on Facebook.